In Defense of Hate Crimes Laws

David Nieuwert at Orcinus has the best defense of hate crimes legislation I have seen articulated in print in a long long time, and I taught a class a few years ago on the "Politics of Fear" which included lectures on hate crimes. Nieuwert's piece is in response to an editorial against hate crimes legislation which appeared in The Missoulian a Montana newspaper he used to work for. The money quote is here:

The editorial essentially argues from two key positions: that it is
somehow inappropriate to apply different sentences to crimes
with identical outcomes but different motivations; and that
hate-crime statutes create protected "classes" of victims who are
treated differently than others. Both are simply wrong.

First: The principle of proportionality in sentencing is a
fundamental aspect of criminal law. Society has always chosen to
punish crimes more or less harshly according to the culpability
of the perpetrator, particularly the level of harm he inflicts. This
is why, in the case of the death of another person, someone may
face charges ranging from first-degree murder to third-degree
manslaughter.

[...]

Not only are bias crimes substantially different in nature from their
parallel crimes, there is no question that they cause substantially
greater harm, so a harsher punishment is fully warranted.

Second: Hate-crime statutes are neither written to protect specific
classes of persons from assault nor to enhance the charges simply
when a person from a "protected class" is the victim of a crime. We
don't have laws that create stiffer time if you simply assault a black
or a Jew or a gay person. The laws don't even specify races or
religions. Such laws would be in clear violation of basic
constitutional principles, including the equal-protection clause.

Gee, someone should give this guy a Koufax award (excellence in left-leaning blogs)! Oh, wait--someone already has. Currently, (according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) there are at least 15 states which still do not include sexual orientation in their hate crime laws. Federally, the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (LLEEA), failed to pass in the last Congress, thanks primarily to Republican opposition.

MON JAN 31 2005 4:09pm UPDATE: According to QueerDay, the state of New Hampshire is now considering the repeal of their hate crime statute, which was enacted in 1990 and does include sexual orientation as a protected class.