There's been a new law passed on hate crimes. It was attached to the military budget, and this was pure politics, although the ramifications of it have yet to be seen. It extends the definition of a hate crime to include new groups, including gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It also has a provision to make it a crime to persecute the troops for being troops, so I guess you can add military status to the list. The thing to know about the list is that only one of those groups are regularly persecuted, or maybe two. Statistically, most hate crimes are racially motivated, which was already covered. The most common crime covered by this law is sexual orientation, which is the third largest by percentage. Hate crimes against returning troops I'm guessing aren't tracked, but are probably still low.

    Now, the Republicans, pretty much to a body, voted against the bill. Remember, this is a war funding bill with an unpleasant amendment tacked on, not a civil rights bill standing alone, so a number of people who normally would have voted enthusiastically for it voted against it, while those who might normally have tried to defund the war to control foreign policy instead voted for it. Many of the Republicans who voted against it did so on the grounds that it is essentially a thought crime; that is, we are punishing someone for what they were thinking when they committed a crime.

    This is somewhat true, but it misses the point. The point is that a hate crime victimizes a whole community. I know many very intelligent black people, and also African Americans (some seem to prefer one term while others prefer the other. I don't personally mind either way) who have been so affected by racism that it affects all their relationships. Even the ones who are able to recognize that not every white person they meet is a racist still expect to see it around every corner. One has to wonder what horrible experiences have made them think this way.

    The same holds true for gays. I mean, the word they stole to describe themselves quickly became a pejorative, and it remains so. Every homosexual I know has a fear of persecution, and a chip on his or her shoulder as a result. It's not because every one has been so persecuted. It's because some have been so severely and publicly persecuted. When there is a pattern of hate crimes against a group, we need to protect that group.

    Now, let's look at the argument from the Republicans, that this is a thought crime. It does have some validity. After all, how can you really know what a person was thinking when they committed a crime? Also, does someone's motivation really make a crime worse? As to the second question, I think the answer is yes and no. No, if it were the same crime, but yes, because the intent of a hate crime is to express the hatred for and intimidate the community, and usually to keep that community in a powerless position, which makes it really a different crime, a crime plus terroristic threatening. But the first question? That's a little harder.

    We need to be very careful when prosecuting a hate crime to be sure that the motivation really is racism, or anti-gay sentiment, or religious bigotry (the second largest source), and not simply greed, or personal vengeance, or one of the other common motivations for crime. This is very important for two reasons. First, we as a just nation do not want to wrongly convict someone of a crime. Second, a conviction for a hate crime can have some of the same effects as the crime itself (this should not be used as an argument against hate crime laws. The net effect is still positive). So we want to tread carefully.

    Now, just like affirmative action, which is intended to correct problems of perception based on prejudice, there should be a periodic review of hate crime laws, to see if they are still necessary, or if they have outlived their usefulness (this might be a good idea for all laws, for that matter). However, unlike affirmative action, which is already running it's course as regards race, we need a very long time scale for hate crimes. The reason for this is that hate is generational, that is, it is often taught by parents to children, and grandparents to grandchildren. It takes a long time to overcome prejudices. It has been fifty years since the civil rights movement began, and there are still a lot of racially motivated hate crimes (I think part of the reason it's at the top of the list is because it's the largest of the tracked groups, but that's probably not the only reason).

    So, what's long enough? I don't know. It might take a hundred years. Obviously I hope not. I think the best thing would be to start with fifty and then review every ten or so. It may be that we can stop hate crimes faster where there isn't such a long history of it. That would be a good thing.