Oct 9, 2009 by Bruce
Where’s the epidemic of hate crimes?
The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act appears to moving along swimmingly as an attachment to the Defense Authorization Bill. As an attachment, it prevented folks in the Senate from offering amendments or even debating it fully. Voting against it forces senators and representatives to vote against the troops. It’s a great strategy for the Reid-Pelosi axis to take, even if unseemly and the opposite of “the-most-transparent-administration-in-history” pledge.
Too bad. It would be lovely to have a debate over its merits as a stand-alone bill. For instance, we’ve been told there’s a national epidemic of violent crime against gays and lesbians that justifies this federal excursion into thought crimes and religious oppression.
Far from it.
If by violent crime you look at FBI statistics for murder, rape and aggravated assault, the sham being perpetrated becomes readily apparent. In 2007, the most recent year for which FBI numbers are available, there were 963,032 incidents of violent crime (murder, rape and aggravated assault combined).
How many of those were attributed to a bias against someone’s sexual orientation?
Two hundred, forty-seven.
Some epidemic.
Two hundred forty-seven is the REPORTED number of anti-gay hate crimes in 2007, not the actual number. The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that anti-gay hate crimes get the attention they deserve: to be reported, investigated, and solved, rather than ignored.
Yes, there is a difference between “reported” and “actual” numbers but even if you play with the numbers based on un-confirmable “actual” numbers, it actually hurts your ratio. The reality is that either way you look at it, both the raw numbers and the ratio are still embarrassingly insufficient to justify a new federal law.
And that gets to the heart of your implicit assumption: without the Matthew Shepard Act, violent crimes against gays and lesbians would never be addressed under existing criminal laws. But of course they are. Where are Matthew Shepard’s killers right now? In jail. It’s both unnecessary and harmful to have a law that duplicates efforts to put criminals behind bars – particularly when it adds the problems of policing people’s thoughts and chilling religious speech.
Just for the record, I do think that 247 violent crimes against gays and lesbians is repugnant. Our desire is to see this number be ZERO. The perpetrators should, and do, go to jail for long periods of time.
I too want the number of anti-gay hate crimes to be zero. In principle I dislike the concept of hate crimes legislation. But until certain people learn to treat certain other people with the dignity and respect we deserve, laws like the Matthew Shepard Act are an unfortunate necessity.
Here’s something to think about and you don’t have to answer: if society were no longer subjected to conservative Christians’ message about homosexuality (i.e., it’s a wicked abomination, gay people are immoral perverts who were partly responsible for 9/11, accepting homosexuality means the end of civilization, gay people cannot be trusted to raise children, etc.), do you think anti-gay violence would increase…or decrease?
I echo that sentiment of wanting the number of hate crimes (and any crime, for that matter) to equal zero. But, to say that society is subjected to hate-filled conservative Christian messages about homosexuality is a poor – and blatantly wrong – caricature of conservative Christians.
True Christians, like those at Exodus International and Focus on the Family, have consistently demonstrated that their message is one of love, grace, and hope for those who desire to change from their homosexual lifestyle.
Besides, in order to accommodate the world as you think it should be, that would require the elimination of free speech and religious liberty. I hate seeing the shrill rhetoric of fringe groups who may call themselves Christians (but don’t have the Christ-like love that many strive to have for ALL people) just as you do. But I’m not willing to have their words silenced if that means jeopardizing my freedoms.
Using those same figures, there were only 44 violent crimes committed based on religion, so does that mean we should repeal the existing hate crimes protections for that?
What it DOES mean is that the numbers we are talking about are so small in all categories that there is NO justification for the federal government to get involved in usurping basic state jurisdiction over violent crime. This law is being passed for its political value, not its law enforcement value.
I am not sure where you got your numbers from.
The 247 number comes from the addition of three columns on Table 4 under the 2007 report. Under the row heading “Sexual orientation,” you add the number of murders (5) plus the number of rapes (0) plus the number of aggravated assaults (242) and you get 247. I thought the methodology was explained in my original post, but sometimes it’s easier just to walk through it.
I looked at violent crime only. If we’re going to involve the federal government, we should be looking at an national epidemic of something other than vandalism and shoving and pushing.