The Trouble with "Hate" Crimes Laws

I was partly caused to start thinking along these lines by this piece, http://townhall.com/columnists/MattBarber/2009/04/21/separate_but_unequal_protection?page=full , however I have not read much of it yet, so my thought are only loosely based on it.

The fact of the matter is that current law makes murder for any reason a crime. The logic behind hate-crimes legislation is not existant. While it might make sense in limited crimes like cross burning, where the crime is clearly one of emotional disturbance and not just the destruction of property, I have yet to even see evidence that there is a cross-burning equivalent in crimes against homosexuals.

This leads me to my main conclusion, Matthew Shepperd is the appropriate and most apropro poster-child of the Hate Crimes legislation movement because he was killed for drugs and not because he was a homosexual and because his killers have been senanced to life in prison.

Matthew Shepherd is the perfect example of why the hate crime legislation movement is built on a lie. Studies have been done that provide convincing evidence that Shepherd was killed over drugs and money and that the crusume brutalness of his killing is best attributed to the fact that his killer was coming off of a meth binge. Whether the failure of the coroner in this case to accept that explanation is symtomatic of an attempt to cover-up the level to which the drug culture had infiltated Laramie or whether the cornoner not understanding meth binges tells us that the officials in Laramie were neither equipped to nor trying to put under control the wave of meth they were under, I am not sure, but what is clear is that there was a total failure in Laramie to adequately respond to the drug issue.

However, there is another reason why Matthew Shepherd's death being drug related was denied. This is because a full analysis of what actually happened would have led to the conclusion that Shepherd was doing drugs, a conclusion that was the last thing his mother wanted. She sought to make him a saint, an acceptable dead who needed to be revenged, and that meant his death had to be pinned on his sexual orientation and not his drug connetions.

At the same time there is convincing evidence that Matthew Shepherd's killed was bi-sexual. This information was supressed in the trial because his lawyer mistakenly thought that the anti-gay reflex defense would hold some weight. It did not, and so his girl friend has now come out and admitted he tried to get her to engage in three-way sex with him and another man, and another man in Laramie has come out and stated he was engaged in three-way sex with Shepherd's killer.

The whole matter is brought home by two other facts that make the story of Matthew's death a lie. The main one is that Shepherd and his killer were not aquainted. Although I think there is far too little evidence for the idle speculations of some that Shepherd and his killer had had sexual relations, it is clear that they had often interacted at parties and seems quite likely that they were somehow connected in the drug trade, who supplied who with drugs I am not sure, but it seems likely Shepherd was the buyer.

Shepherd the drug addict killed in what was a drug related crime by a bi-sexual is not the story that they will tell you about Shepherd. Yet it is also the story behind many other claimed "hate" crimes, and makes Mr. Barber's claim that hate crimes laws will create a caste system of victims totally true. If Shepherd had not been a self-identified homosexual, he would have been killed in the exact same way, assuming that there was no sexual connection between him and his killer, but you and I would have never heard of it, and with the way justice goes in Laramie and with the inability of his mother to make him into a saint because we would have just percieved him as another drug addict, it is not even clear that his murderers would have been punished to the extent they were.

Hate crimes laws do not really consider the context of the crime, but are actually most useful to criminalize things that currently are 100% legal, like standing up and saying homosexual relations of any type are sinful and an abomination in the sight of God.

==Additional Thoughts==
I have come to see hate crimes laws as very bad. In Utah people are constantly told if they do not support hate crimes laws than they support the assult and killing of homosexuals. This is just total rubbish. Current law makes killing anyone a crime, and with the ACLU always griping that the death penalty should be interpreted as un-constitutional, it can not be said that Utah is "too easy on crime". If there are at times not stingent enough prosecutions of some assults or murders the issue is very complexed, and with the way one assult on a persons record, no matter what the actual circumstances are, is used to tarnish them for the rest of their life and try to punish them for the rest of their life, I generally think decisions not to prosecute are more logical than some naysayers belive. Brother Hola would have been a good mayor of Salt Lake City, but since he had an assult of his ex-wife on his reccord, which having read enough about domestic violence law was probably a case were him and his ex-wife had gotten into a mutual fight, and anyway why is a man who has re-married and clearly shown that he has moved passed his one time less than perfect control of his emotions still punished?
By that as it may, Brother Hola clearly had more respect for the law and the truth than Ross Anderson ever did, and at least he stood by the principals he espoused and his political positions, instead of constantly switching them to be as detrimental to the one organization that does more than any other to maintain Salt Lake City as a viable and liveable place. Ross Anderson was the worst mayor Salt Lake City ever had, and the best thing that ever happened for Utah Democrats was that he supported Ralph Nader and not Barrack Obama in the last election. Democrats will not win state-wide elections in Utah until they manage to distance themselves for the likes of Anderson.