Alabama House approves hate crimes bill
By Jennifer J. Foster
The Alabama House of Representatives today passed a bill that expands the state’s hate crimes law to include sexual orientation.
I wrote a column about hate crimes last fall. You can read it here. If you saw it then, or if you are just reading it now, you know that I am no fan of hate crimes legislation. I don’t buy the argument that certain crimes hurt society worse because of the motive third parties ascribe to them; for that to be true, the opposite would also have to be true—that the non-hate crimes, though they are of the same variety, are somehow less injurious to society.
In other words, let’s say you have two murders. Authorities tag Murder A a hate crime, but they decide Murder B is just your garden-variety killing.
The reasoning behind hate crimes legislation holds that Murder A should be punished more severely than Murder B, because the killers in the first case have caused more damage to the societal framework.
Tell that to the family of murder victim B.
But there’s another reason to oppose hate crimes legislation, and it has to do with Lady Justice: Legal tradition holds that justice is blind. But with hate crimes legislation, not only is Lady Justice not blind, she’s peering into your soul with the Hubble telescope and poring over it with archeological tools.
And that brings us to the third problem with hate crimes legislation: Third parties—police, district attorneys, judges and other extensions of the state—putting themselves in the position of judging your thoughts instead of your deeds. In effect, they make themselves mindreaders. If they get your thoughts wrong, you could find yourself being punished unfairly. But let’s say they get them right ... do you really want the government punishing you for your thoughts? If you don’t think this is fertile ground for persecution to cross paths with prosecution, I give you McCarthyism.
Hate crimes laws are the enemies of equality. With any luck, this bill will fall victim to the usual antics of the Alabama Senate; State Sen. “Philibuster” Poole could actually take credit for doing something positive for this state.
Failing that, I will implore Gov. Riley to veto this bad bill. If Alabama is interested in equal protection under the law, the State Legislature ought to be repealing its existing hate crimes statute, not expanding it.
