Hate Crimes bill S 1105, from my understanding, protects Americans from violent hate crimes based on race, religion, gender, & sexual orientation, all basic stuff. Can anyone point out SPECIFICALLY where in the bill it says you can be prosecuted for a hate cime for saying you dislike a specific group of people?
2007-07-20 13:32:34 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
You can not. Yet. That is going to be an issue for the lawyers. Attacking someone black when you are a member of the KKK is probably hate related. Beating up a gay man while calling him a 'queer' and other offensive terms related to his sexuality again is probably hate related.
The bill aims to target violence where the primary motivation is hatred for a person based not on who they are, but on skin colour, religion, sex (i.e. it could have been anyone that was attacked, the victim just being in the wrong place at the wrong time).
No doubt, there will be those who will aim to abuse the law, but that does not make it a bad law.
2007-07-24 04:28:16 · answer #1 · answered by The Patriot 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I does not say that. The problem I have with the legislation is how do they determine what is a hate crime and what is not a hate crime. If a white man kills a black man, will he get a harsher sentence than if a black man killed a white man, or a white man killed another white man? How do you prove or disprove a crime was provoked by racial hate?
2007-07-23 09:40:09 · answer #2 · answered by gerafalop 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They can't - because it only applies to violent crimes - not speech which would be clearly unconstitutional.
2007-07-20 20:36:48 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋