Should Congress broaden U.S. hate crimes laws?

The Associated Press

Stones form a cross where Matthew Shepard, a young gay man from Laramie, Wyo., was found murdered in 1999. Shepard's death sparked a national outcry for stronger hate crime laws.

Featured Topic | Posted 19 weeks 4 days ago

Should Congress broaden U.S. hate crimes laws?

Expanding federal hate crimes laws has been on the Democratic agenda for years now. On Tuesday, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., introduced legislation in a major defense policy bill to extend U.S. hate crime laws to cover gays and lesbians.

The chairman of the powerful Armed Services committee said he hopes a broader hate-crimes law gets a thorough debate. Last year, Democrats tried to attach a similar measure to the defense authorization bill but backed down after Republican objections to the legislation on First Amendment grounds threatened to sink the bill. "Diversity and tolerance and hate crimes runs smack against what the men and women of the American armed forces fight for," Levin said.

Should Congress expand federal hate crimes laws to cover gays and lesbians? Should hate crimes fall under the purview of the federal government at all? Do hate crimes undermine the equal application of the laws in the name of group rights? Aren't many -- if not most -- violent crimes motivated by hatred anyway?

Ben likes: Hating hate

National Review

Hate crimes "are different" from other crimes: That was the argument for hate-crimes laws that Al Gore made during the 2000 campaign, and it is the argument that we are going to hear again this week, as Congress takes up federal legislation on the subject. Crimes motivated by hostility to the victim’s race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation are said to be different chiefly because they, supposedly, instill fear in entire communities and generate social division.

Even if this generalization is true -- and it is not obvious that it is -- it should not end our thought about hate. There is no evidence that adding hate-crimes laws on top of regular criminal laws does anything to deter these acts. Nor is there any evidence that federal action is needed. Most states already have hate-crimes laws; the federal government has a hate-crimes law that applies to victims who were engaged in federally protected activities, such as holding rallies.

The proposed legislation would allow the federal government to investigate and prosecute hate crimes, whether or not federally protected activities were involved, and to assist local law enforcement in fighting them. But there is no evidence that local law enforcement has a special need for federal resources to help it combat hate crimes.

Joel likes: Standing up against hate crimes

Winnie Stachelberg/Center for American Progress

Hate crimes terrorize entire communities. When Matthew Shepard died in 1998, thousands of gay men and lesbians across the country were reminded that their sexuality made them vulnerable to horrific violence. Criminal offenses against people of color, gays, lesbians, people with disabilities, and other minority groups often target individuals, but they create insecurity and anxiety in local communities and vulnerable groups nationwide.

Gays and lesbians are increasingly in the public spotlight due to the marriage equality debate, and the number of hate crimes against them has spiked in some parts of the country. Individuals with non-traditional gender identities also continue to be targets of brutal violence nationwide. Yet federal prosecutors do not have legal authority to intervene in cases of violence based on bias toward transgender individuals at all, and law does not require the FBI to even collect statistics on such cases. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act would take a needed step to protect transgender Americans by allowing the FBI to gather statistics about the number of crimes motivated by bias against an individual’s gender identity and also to investigate and prosecute these crimes.