06-18-2015, 10:42 PM
(06-18-2015, 08:59 PM)Jimbone Wrote: Kind of shows the lunacy of calling something a hate crime.
'It's a hate crime, erhmagod!!! Gays got attacked!!!'
"Oh wait, the perp is gay? Bummer, it's just a regular crime now.'
I have mixed feelings about the "hate crimes" and "domestic terrorism" designations. Murder is murder. Assault is assault. Both are committed daily for a variety of motives. So, are those subjective designations really necessary or even appropriate in specific cases?
In any case, I think the designations lose validity and impact when they're overused and inappropriately applied, as with the assault case brought by the gay couple upthread. That doesn't appear to have been motivated by the fact that the couple was gay, but instead by a dispute between people who happen to be gay.
On the other hand, when assholes like the Tsarnaevs, the animals who beat Stephen Utash, Nidal Hasan, Dylann Roof...kill or assault strangers for hate motives, I do like that the Federal government has authority to push for the death penalty where some states don't, and that prosecutors can use that and harsher penalties as leverage against the perpetrators (especially when mass murder/assault is involved).