It's very hard to understand why anyone would be hating on Adam just because he's Jewish. But really, it's hard to understand hating anyone merely because of some group affiliation. That's just lazy. If you look hard enough, there are plenty of reasons to hate people on an individual basis.
A couple guys flying some planes into things made a lot of people hate a certain ethnic group in this country.
While I don't agree with it, I can see how people reach these judgements at times.
Financial gain, political reasons, fits of rage, may all be one-time-only events and the people who murder for these reasons may be rehabilitated. If someone hates, say, mutants enough to kill someone merely because he is a mutant, how likely will it be that the murderer can be rehabilitated? If the hate is still there, the murderer may murder another mutant as soon as he is released from custody.
Yeah, sorry. I think that racism, or any other ism, can be rehabilitated just as well as anything else can be. I present to you some anecdotal evidence.
Yeah, sorry. I think that racism, or any other ism, can be rehabilitated just as well as anything else can be. I present to you some anecdotal evidence.
Yeah, sorry. Half assed sarcasm and anecdote =/= proof, old man.
Yeah, sorry. I think that racism, or any other ism, can be rehabilitated just as well as anything else can be. I present to you some anecdotal evidence.
Yeah, sorry. Half assed sarcasm and anecdote =/= proof, old man.
It's very hard to understand why anyone would be hating on Adam just because he's Jewish. But really, it's hard to understand hating anyone merely because of some group affiliation. That's just lazy. If you look hard enough, there are plenty of reasons to hate people on an individual basis.
A couple guys flying some planes into things made a lot of people hate a certain ethnic group in this country.
While I don't agree with it, I can see how people reach these judgements at times.
No, that didn't "make" anyone hate anyone. People chose to hate a group based on the actions of a few and with little information regarding the criminals themselves. I can never understand a choice that is so completely illogical.
Pragmatically, however, these sorts of laws do send a message, on the lower level of discourse, to the general citizenry that their bigotry will not be tolerated.
Yeah: If you're gonna hurt or kill somebody, make sure it's someone that's like you!
The US has a history of punishing people less harshly if they are damaging their own people than if they are damaging someone different from them. I actually agree with Scott on this issue, with one additional reason:
Judges often have the discretion to impose a sentence within a range. They take the likelihood of rehabilitation and repeat offense into account when they determine what the sentence should be. The likelihood of future crime is not supposed to affect the crime the person is charged with or can be found guilty of. That's part of why we have a range of sentences for one crime; to allow harsher punishment for people who are more dangerous. The sentencing judge takes all of the information they can get about a person into account in the sentencing. We also have more severe punishments for repeat offenders.
Is it fair to charge someone as a repeat offender when they have only made one offense?
If it is, then why not apply that to every criminal? Some criminals who commit non-hate crimes are very likely to offend again after release.
Should we have some kind of law designating a special branch of crime for people who are prone to repeat offend, but have not yet?
If we should not, then how can we justify separate hate crime laws?
Thelikelihood of future crime is not supposed to affect the crime the person is charged with or can be found guilty of.
Depending on what court and jurisdiction you're in, predictions of future behavior often figure into sentencing. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines attempt to predict future recidivism and Truth in Sentencin laws attempt to predict liklihood of parole and release.
But, more to the point, the legislators that draft the sentencing laws try to take future behavior, especially recidivism into account. Two of the goals of criminal law are incapacitation and rehabilitation. The criminal law is not only concerned with retrubution. Legislators assign harsher sentences to particular crimes not only because they believe that particular crimes deserve harsher retribution, but that the perpetrators should be incapacitated for a longer time because they are more difficult to rehabilitate.
Thelikelihood of future crime is not supposed to affect the crime the person is charged with or can be found guilty of.
Depending on what court and jurisdiction you're in, predictions of future behavior often figure into sentencing. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines attempt to predict future recidivism and Truth in Sentencin laws attempt to predict liklihood of parole and release.
But, more to the point, the legislators that draft the sentencing laws try to take future behavior, especially recidivism into account. Two of the goals of criminal law are incapacitation and rehabilitation. The criminal law is not only concerned with retrubution. Legislators assign harsher sentences to particular crimes not only because they believe that particular crimes deserve harsher retribution, but that the perpetrators should be incapacitated for a longer time because they are more difficult to rehabilitate.
That's exactly what I just said. It doesn't affect the crime you are found guilty of - it affects the sentencing. Having a separate crime defined by what a criminal is likely to do in the future is, in my opinion, unconscionable. That is supposed to be considered in the sentencing, NOT the charge.
EDIT: Also, in my first bullet point in the previous post, I changed "punish" to "charge." That is what I meant.
The punishment should fit the crime regardless of any isms related to the perpetrator of the crime.
If non-protected class criminal violates (rape, murder, whatever) non-protected class victim they get sentence X. If non-protected class criminal violates (rape, murder, whatever) protected class victim they get sentence X+Y.
In both cases the crime was the same but the punishment is different because one person is of a protected class? That is bullshit and betrays one of the core principles of justice in that justice is supposed to be blind and treat everyone the same way.
Man, if I get rich, I might quit and go to law schools. Nuri's only been there a few months, and she's already law-ing it up big time. Same amount of time in tech school, and you might not be that far beyond hello world.
As a person who lives in one of the most dense LGBT areas in the country, there is one issue that no one has really mentioned here that they harp on often. It's one thing when a hate crime is done by one individual to another, or a group against an individual, or any combination thereof. It's a completely different issue when it's the authorities doing it against them. Much like how there is rarely a week that goes by without some kind of religious individual preying on children, there are also frequent occurrences where police officers will deal with gays (more often than not male victims) more harshly than what most would deem necessary. This is especially true in the more conservative states. To the LGBT community, they see this "special" treatment being no different than the same treatment blacks and other minorities get. The only difference is that in the media, the racial minorities get represented these days while the sexual minorities do not.
So, even though I am also in agreement that hate crimes shouldn't really be treated any different than a normal crime, if hate crime legislation helps to eradicate bigotry among both civilian and law enforcement, then I'm for it. Like any other habit, forcing behavior will eventually lead to it being natural.
It's a completely different issue when it's the authorities doing it against them. Much like how there is rarely a week that goes by without some kind of religious individual preying on children, there are also frequent occurrences where police officers will deal with gays (more often than not male victims) more harshly than what most would deem necessary. This is especially true in the more conservative states. To the LGBT community, they see this "special" treatment being no different than the same treatment blacks and other minorities get.
Don't you have laws against this behavior already on the books? Has anyone tried suing the police over such acts of discrimination?
Don't you have laws against this behavior already on the books? Has anyone tried suing the police over such acts of discrimination?
Well I know we do, but I can't speak for the mid-west and southern states where most of these incidents occur. I am by no means a law expert, especially for things that don't directly concern me. As far as lawsuits, I'm sure they do happen, but I don't tend to hear about many success stories. I'm not really the right person to answer those kinds of questions. I just know what I hear from people who are experts in this field.
That's exactly what I just said. It doesn't affect the crime you are found guilty of - it affects the sentencing. Having a separate crime defined by what a criminal is likely to do in the future is, in my opinion, unconscionable. That is supposed to be considered in the sentencing, NOT the charge.
I don't remember anyone discussing a separate crime defined by what a defendant is likely to do in the future. Hate Crime legislation that I'm most familiar with is an enhancement. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act allows for increased penalties for hate crimes. When I was talking about recidivism as a consideration, I was talking about sentencing. In Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476 (1993), the Supreme Court found that such penalty enhancements statutes were consitiutional.
loltsundere talked about another consideration that Rehnquist took into account in that decision - the impact on the community. The Hate Crime perpetrator not only victimizes an individual victim, he victimizes the community. Additionally, his crime makes bias-based retaliatory crimes more likely to occur.
There are Hate Crime laws like the Matthew Shepard Act that punish actual crimes that are committed with race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. as a motivator, but they do not attempt to criminalize future conduct, so I'm not sure what your point was here.
The punishment should fit the crime regardless of any isms related to the perpetrator of the crime.
If non-protected class criminal violates (rape, murder, whatever) non-protected class victim they get sentence X. If non-protected class criminal violates (rape, murder, whatever) protected class victim they get sentence X+Y.
In both cases the crime was the same but the punishment is different because one person is of a protected class? That is bullshit and betrays one of the core principles of justice in that justice is supposed to be blind and treat everyone the same way.
Maybe you should talk to the ghost of William Rehnquist and tell him he was wrong in Wisconsin v. Mitchell.
In order for something to be considered a hate crime, doesn't an extra element have to be added? Namely, the prosecution would have to also prove that the crime was motivated by the fact that the victim was a member of some protected class. If there's an additional element that has to be proven and there is a different set of sentences, then how is that different from a separate criminal charge? I get that there isn't a separate set of statutes that spells out Assault+Hate = Hate Crime Assault, but effectively, the result is the same.
Regarding constitutionality, I'm not against higher penalties for crimes motivated by hatred if it is justified. I just don't think it should be limited only to that specific type of crime. If the justification is that the offenders are likely to commit more crimes when they are released, then I don't see why the judges wouldn't just give them the higher sentence for the base charge, and I don't see why other dangerous criminals shouldn't be subject to the same level of sentencing just because their crimes weren't deemed to be motivated by discrimination.
The societal impact is a good consideration, but laws against something are usually much less effective than blatant societal disapproval. The only way these bigots are going to change their behavior is if the people in the community display disapproval. Many of them think of the government as "the man" already, and don't care at all about violating the laws. The penalties available weren't enough to deter them before, so I doubt it will have much affect now. I could be wrong, and I'll be very happy if the law turns out to have a positive effect, but I doubt that it will.
I think that hate crime legislation is redundant, just like I think the ERA is redundant. We already have the ability to give people who are likely to be repeat offenders higher sentences, just like women are already supposed to have equal rights under the government. If the maximum sentence is too low to accommodate hate crimes, then they should raise the maximum overall so that it can also apply to other dangerous criminals. If someone can give me a real, new function that this legislation will perform (besides telling people that hate crimes are "bad," because we certainly haven't been doing that already...), then I will support it. Until then, there's no reason I can see for it.
On October 7, 1989, Todd Mitchell, a young black man, instigated an attack against a young white boy. He was subsequently convicted of aggravated battery in the Circuit Court for Kenosha County. According to Wisconsin statute, Mitchell's sentence was increased, because the court found that he had selected his victim based on race. Mitchell challenged the constitutionality of the increase in his penalty, but the Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected his claims. However, the Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed. Question:
Did the increase in Mitchell's sentence based on his bigoted motives violate his First Amendment rights? Conclusion:
No. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court found that the Wisconsin statute paralleled antidiscrimination laws which had been found to comply with the First Amendment. It also determined that the consequences for the victim and the community tended to be more severe, when the victim of a crime was chosen on account of his or her race. Thus, when the Wisconsin statute increased the sentence for such crimes, it was not punishing the defendant for his or her bigoted beliefs or statements, but rather the predicted ramifications of his or her crime. Finally, the Court concluded that the Wisconsin statute did not violate the right to free speech because the occasion in which an average person's racist comments would be used against him or her in a court of law would arise so rarely that he or she would not feel forced to suppress them.
Decisions
Decision: 9 votes for Wisconsin, 0 vote(s) against Legal provision: Amendment 1: Speech, Press, and Assembly
He should have sued his lawyers for mounting it as a first amendment case.
He should have sued his lawyers for mounting it as a first amendment case.
What would you have done to obtain a more favorable result?
Actually, it doesn't matter how his lawyer "mounted it". Rehnquist wrote in his decision that the very thing you have a problem with, enhanced sentences for hate crimes, is constitutional.
On what grounds should any lawyer have been sued in that case? That one side didn't win?
In order for something to be considered a hate crime, doesn't an extra element have to be added? Namely, the prosecution would have to also prove that the crime was motivated by the fact that the victim was a member of some protected class. If there's an additional element that has to be proven and there is a different set of sentences, then how is that different from a separate criminal charge? I get that there isn't a separate set of statutes that spells out Assault+Hate = Hate Crime Assault, but effectively, the result is the same.
There are some separate statutes that say Crime+Hate=Hate Crime, such as the 1969 Federal Hate Crimes Law, and the Matthew Shephard Act. They don't criminalize future events, as I think I gleaned was your problem from earlier. If you don't have a problem with enhancements for Hate Crimes, I don't know why you'd have a problem with an additional crime.
Man, if I get rich, I might quit and go to law schools. Nuri's only been there a few months, and she's already law-ing it up big time. Same amount of time in tech school, and you might not be that far beyond hello world.
Reality No. 1: You aren't going to be rich.
Reality No. 2: You would be eaten alive at law school.
I don't have a problem with hate crime penalties. I have a problem with other crimes not being held to the same level, even though they might be just as bad. A guy who hates people who wear glasses, for example, might be just as likely to assault a glasses-wearer when he gets out of jail. He gets a lighter sentence just because his hatred isn't directed towards a protected class? That's fucked up.
A guy who hates people who wear glasses, for example, might be just as likely to assault a glasses-wearer when he gets out of jail. He gets a lighter sentence just because his hatred isn't directed towards a protected class? That's fucked up.
Is there any difference between the class of people who wear glasses and the classes of people protected by hate crime laws? Protected classes are insular, discrete, and immutable. The whole point of the unfairness of being a member of those classes is that members can't help their membership in the classes and they can't easily choose to leave their class.
I wear glasses. However, if I saw a news item about a guy going around assaulting people who wear glasses, it would not cause me to be fearful because I could easily choose to leave the class of people who wear glasses by getting contacts, undergoing laser eye correction, or just simply not wearing my glasses when I'm out in public. The person with the X-gene I like to talk about can't leave his class. He was born into the class, will be a member of the class until he dies, and can always be identified as a member of his class. If he sees a news item about a guy going around killing mutants, he will be fearful because there's nothing he can do to relinquish his status as a member of his class. Further, if he and other members of his class become fearful enough and they don't feel protected by their government, they might take the option of self help and seek out the guy and guys like him to mete out some vigilante style justice. The government has a legitimate interest in preventing that sort of thing. Glasses-wearers would never do that because they don't have the same basis for insular, discrete class identity and it's so easy to relinquish their class status.
Equal protection? Couldn't his lawyers have pointed out that he was treated differently under the law because of his racists views?
That's not how Equal Protection works. In order to trigger that sort of analysis, you'd have to show that your client is a member of a suspect class, just like the classes protected by Hate Crime legislation. The same analysis of whether your client belonged to a suspect class would apply. Is the class of people holding racist views and immutable, insular, and discrete class? Is a person born with racist views? Are people holding racist views easily identifiable and have they historically been the victims of discrimination? Can a person in the class of people who hold racist views easily relinquish his status as a member of that class? I don't think that this class will ever be considered a suspect class, and therefore, Equal Protection would not apply. Furthermore, I don't think any court would find that any class of people should be allowed to assault another class of people, no matter if that class was a suspect class or not. That's not a good thing from a public policy standpoint.
What if their is a psycho who only attacks members of a protected class who wear glasses? Would this person fall under the hate crimes legislation?
Now you're just being intentionally obtuse and silly.
This type of thing reminds me of Pierson v. Post, the first case we read in Property. It was pretty much the first case my class read in law school. Briefly, what had happened was that this guy was chasing down a fox on a fox hunt (just as I was talking to Scott about before, much of the law is very old. This case was from the 1800s or thereabouts). Another guy was just happening along, saw the fox, killed it, and took it for his own. The first guy sued him and said that the fox was his. Now, the issue was: whose fox was it? Some students took some stabs at the issue and all their answers were shot down by the professor and her probing questions. Then one guy said, "What if the second guy saw the fox eating an endangered plant? Wouldn't he then have a duty to kill the fox?" People just laughed, because this reasoning was just so silly. I've always remembered that, and your question about "a psycho who only attacks members of a protected class who wear glasses" is just as silly. Please. This type of thing is why your credibility on this board is so low.
Protected classes are insular, discrete, and immutable. The whole point of the unfairness of being a member of those classes is that members can't help their membership in the classes and they can't easily choose to leave their class.
Immutability: No, they aren't. Religion is a protected class. Needing glasses is less of a choice than your religion. It's NOT "so easy to relinquish your class" as a glasses-wearer. My choices are basically wear glasses or be blind. I physically cannot wear contacts and I cannot afford surgery. You can change your religion without any money or physical handicap. Many people argued that being gay was less of a choice than your religion, which I'm sure is a large part of why it is now being included. Religion is the redheaded stepchild of protected classes. It is protected because society feels you shouldn't HAVE to change your religion, not because you can't, and that opens the door to a lot of arguments about what should give something protected status.
What makes a protected class? These classes are protected because there is a greater active threat against them than against other things, such as wearing glasses. We don't frivolously protect classes that don't need protecting. That doesn't mean that there aren't other immutable things that people could be targeted for, and I disagree with people who think that penalties should be less for people who target unprotected things. It's a policy-motivated law; we protect the protected classes because we feel that they are things people should not have to be threatened for. We as a society recognize some basic right to freedom from oppression when it comes to those classes. Public policy doesn't care if I get denied a job because I have to wear glasses, but they care if I get denied a job because I'm a muslim. I can't function without wearing glasses? Well, too bad. I like being a muslim and don't want to change it? Oh, now there's hell to pay for that prospective employer.
My opinion: What it really comes down to is that I think there are other crimes with equal negativity, and I think they should be able to be punished just as harshly as these "hate crimes" are. It's my opinion, and I know not everybody agrees, but I've given you my reasons. I'm a member of a class that is often targeted and is NOT protected. It's a choice, sure...as much as being gay is. By which I mean that you can chose to ignore it, not to act on it, but it doesn't go away. I can't talk about certain things or display certain tendencies without having to worry about being discriminated against professionally and socially. You know what? I don't think the people who assault us because of what we are should be subject to anything less than people who are motivated by anti-gay sentiment, and you're unlikely to ever convince me otherwise.
Equal protection? Couldn't his lawyers have pointed out that he was treated differently under the law because of his racists views?
Um, they did. They were denied. The court decided it wasn't unconstitutional. He wasn't being punished for his racist views...he was being punished for acting on them. And you can't charge someone with a hate crime just because a white guy happened to kill a black guy. You have to prove that it was motivated by race to get that charge.
Protected classes are insular, discrete, and immutable. The whole point of the unfairness of being a member of those classes is that members can't help their membership in the classes and they can't easily choose to leave their class.
Immutability: No, they aren't. Religion is a protected class. Needing glasses is less of a choice than your religion. It's NOT "so easy to relinquish your class" as a glasses-wearer. My choices are basically wear glasses or be blind. I physically cannot wear contacts and I cannot afford surgery. You can change your religion without any money or physical handicap. Many people argued that being gay was less of a choice than your religion, which I'm sure is a large part of why it is now being included. Religion is the redheaded stepchild of protected classes. It is protected because society feels you shouldn't HAVE to change your religion, not because you can't, and that opens the door to a lot of arguments about what should give something protected status.
Needing glasses may be less of a physical choice than your religion, but exercise of religious freedom is a fundamental right. Wearing glasses is not. You say "You can change your religion without any money or physical handicap", and that may very well reflect your opinion on the value of religion, but a person would encounter a handicap in changing their religion albeit not necessarily a physical one. The handicap they would suffer is an infringement on a fundamental right. Religion is treated as a suspect class because free exercise of religion is a fundamental right. People therefore shouldn't be expected to change their religion as you would be expected to seek an alternative to wearing glasses. I don't know your views on religion, but I think it's safe to say that many religious people would look at the question of glasses wearing and religious freedom in exactly the opposite way that you seem to and would say that changing religion would be a much greater handicap than seeking an alternative to glasses. If you think glasses are more important, that's fine as far as your individual opinion goes, but your glasses-wearing habits are not a fundamental right.
Also, it is foreseeable that your inability to afford laser surgery is merely temporary. A person's fundamental right to exercise their religion is given greater weight than your non-fundamental right to wear glasses and your temporary inability to afford laser vision surgery.
You show that you understand this with your statement "Religion is the redheaded stepchild of protected classes. It is protected because society feels you shouldn't HAVE to change your religion, not because you can't", so I don't know exactly what you're getting at. You seem to be saying on the one hand that religion is not a suspect class and then on the other admitting that it is. Is it the term "immutable" that you're worried about? The "immutability" of a religious class derives from the fundamental right of a person to exercise his religion. While it's true that it is, at least physically, possible to change your religion and it's not physically possible to change your race color or national origin, the court is not going to make you change your religion since it is a fundamental right.
I'm a member of a class that is often targeted and is NOT protected. It's a choice, sure...as much as being gay is.
What's a choice? Being gay? I think that the whole point of people seeking Equal Protection for gay people is that being gay is not a choice.
I think that Nuri meant that it is not a choice, as being gay is not a choice. Some people are of the opinion that homosexuality itself is not a choice, but that homosexuals have the choice not to engage in homosexual behavior, therefore we should still all be judged accordingly. I don't really need to say how completely unreasonable that point of view is.
I'm at least fairly sure that's the comparison she was trying to make.
Comments
While I don't agree with it, I can see how people reach these judgements at times.
The US has a history of punishing people less harshly if they are damaging their own people than if they are damaging someone different from them. I actually agree with Scott on this issue, with one additional reason:
Judges often have the discretion to impose a sentence within a range. They take the likelihood of rehabilitation and repeat offense into account when they determine what the sentence should be. The likelihood of future crime is not supposed to affect the crime the person is charged with or can be found guilty of. That's part of why we have a range of sentences for one crime; to allow harsher punishment for people who are more dangerous. The sentencing judge takes all of the information they can get about a person into account in the sentencing. We also have more severe punishments for repeat offenders.
But, more to the point, the legislators that draft the sentencing laws try to take future behavior, especially recidivism into account. Two of the goals of criminal law are incapacitation and rehabilitation. The criminal law is not only concerned with retrubution. Legislators assign harsher sentences to particular crimes not only because they believe that particular crimes deserve harsher retribution, but that the perpetrators should be incapacitated for a longer time because they are more difficult to rehabilitate.
EDIT: Also, in my first bullet point in the previous post, I changed "punish" to "charge." That is what I meant.
If non-protected class criminal violates (rape, murder, whatever) non-protected class victim they get sentence X.
If non-protected class criminal violates (rape, murder, whatever) protected class victim they get sentence X+Y.
In both cases the crime was the same but the punishment is different because one person is of a protected class? That is bullshit and betrays one of the core principles of justice in that justice is supposed to be blind and treat everyone the same way.
So, even though I am also in agreement that hate crimes shouldn't really be treated any different than a normal crime, if hate crime legislation helps to eradicate bigotry among both civilian and law enforcement, then I'm for it. Like any other habit, forcing behavior will eventually lead to it being natural.
loltsundere talked about another consideration that Rehnquist took into account in that decision - the impact on the community. The Hate Crime perpetrator not only victimizes an individual victim, he victimizes the community. Additionally, his crime makes bias-based retaliatory crimes more likely to occur.
There are Hate Crime laws like the Matthew Shepard Act that punish actual crimes that are committed with race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. as a motivator, but they do not attempt to criminalize future conduct, so I'm not sure what your point was here. Maybe you should talk to the ghost of William Rehnquist and tell him he was wrong in Wisconsin v. Mitchell.
Regarding constitutionality, I'm not against higher penalties for crimes motivated by hatred if it is justified. I just don't think it should be limited only to that specific type of crime. If the justification is that the offenders are likely to commit more crimes when they are released, then I don't see why the judges wouldn't just give them the higher sentence for the base charge, and I don't see why other dangerous criminals shouldn't be subject to the same level of sentencing just because their crimes weren't deemed to be motivated by discrimination.
The societal impact is a good consideration, but laws against something are usually much less effective than blatant societal disapproval. The only way these bigots are going to change their behavior is if the people in the community display disapproval. Many of them think of the government as "the man" already, and don't care at all about violating the laws. The penalties available weren't enough to deter them before, so I doubt it will have much affect now. I could be wrong, and I'll be very happy if the law turns out to have a positive effect, but I doubt that it will.
I think that hate crime legislation is redundant, just like I think the ERA is redundant. We already have the ability to give people who are likely to be repeat offenders higher sentences, just like women are already supposed to have equal rights under the government. If the maximum sentence is too low to accommodate hate crimes, then they should raise the maximum overall so that it can also apply to other dangerous criminals. If someone can give me a real, new function that this legislation will perform (besides telling people that hate crimes are "bad," because we certainly haven't been doing that already...), then I will support it. Until then, there's no reason I can see for it.
Wisconsin v. Mitchell He should have sued his lawyers for mounting it as a first amendment case.
Actually, it doesn't matter how his lawyer "mounted it". Rehnquist wrote in his decision that the very thing you have a problem with, enhanced sentences for hate crimes, is constitutional.
On what grounds should any lawyer have been sued in that case? That one side didn't win? There are some separate statutes that say Crime+Hate=Hate Crime, such as the 1969 Federal Hate Crimes Law, and the Matthew Shephard Act. They don't criminalize future events, as I think I gleaned was your problem from earlier. If you don't have a problem with enhancements for Hate Crimes, I don't know why you'd have a problem with an additional crime. Reality No. 1: You aren't going to be rich.
Reality No. 2: You would be eaten alive at law school.
I wear glasses. However, if I saw a news item about a guy going around assaulting people who wear glasses, it would not cause me to be fearful because I could easily choose to leave the class of people who wear glasses by getting contacts, undergoing laser eye correction, or just simply not wearing my glasses when I'm out in public. The person with the X-gene I like to talk about can't leave his class. He was born into the class, will be a member of the class until he dies, and can always be identified as a member of his class. If he sees a news item about a guy going around killing mutants, he will be fearful because there's nothing he can do to relinquish his status as a member of his class. Further, if he and other members of his class become fearful enough and they don't feel protected by their government, they might take the option of self help and seek out the guy and guys like him to mete out some vigilante style justice. The government has a legitimate interest in preventing that sort of thing. Glasses-wearers would never do that because they don't have the same basis for insular, discrete class identity and it's so easy to relinquish their class status.
What if their is a psycho who only attacks members of a protected class who wear glasses? Would this person fall under the hate crimes legislation?
This type of thing reminds me of Pierson v. Post, the first case we read in Property. It was pretty much the first case my class read in law school. Briefly, what had happened was that this guy was chasing down a fox on a fox hunt (just as I was talking to Scott about before, much of the law is very old. This case was from the 1800s or thereabouts). Another guy was just happening along, saw the fox, killed it, and took it for his own. The first guy sued him and said that the fox was his. Now, the issue was: whose fox was it? Some students took some stabs at the issue and all their answers were shot down by the professor and her probing questions. Then one guy said, "What if the second guy saw the fox eating an endangered plant? Wouldn't he then have a duty to kill the fox?" People just laughed, because this reasoning was just so silly. I've always remembered that, and your question about "a psycho who only attacks members of a protected class who wear glasses" is just as silly. Please. This type of thing is why your credibility on this board is so low.
What makes a protected class? These classes are protected because there is a greater active threat against them than against other things, such as wearing glasses. We don't frivolously protect classes that don't need protecting. That doesn't mean that there aren't other immutable things that people could be targeted for, and I disagree with people who think that penalties should be less for people who target unprotected things. It's a policy-motivated law; we protect the protected classes because we feel that they are things people should not have to be threatened for. We as a society recognize some basic right to freedom from oppression when it comes to those classes. Public policy doesn't care if I get denied a job because I have to wear glasses, but they care if I get denied a job because I'm a muslim. I can't function without wearing glasses? Well, too bad. I like being a muslim and don't want to change it? Oh, now there's hell to pay for that prospective employer.
My opinion: What it really comes down to is that I think there are other crimes with equal negativity, and I think they should be able to be punished just as harshly as these "hate crimes" are. It's my opinion, and I know not everybody agrees, but I've given you my reasons. I'm a member of a class that is often targeted and is NOT protected. It's a choice, sure...as much as being gay is. By which I mean that you can chose to ignore it, not to act on it, but it doesn't go away. I can't talk about certain things or display certain tendencies without having to worry about being discriminated against professionally and socially. You know what? I don't think the people who assault us because of what we are should be subject to anything less than people who are motivated by anti-gay sentiment, and you're unlikely to ever convince me otherwise. Um, they did. They were denied. The court decided it wasn't unconstitutional. He wasn't being punished for his racist views...he was being punished for acting on them. And you can't charge someone with a hate crime just because a white guy happened to kill a black guy. You have to prove that it was motivated by race to get that charge.
Also, it is foreseeable that your inability to afford laser surgery is merely temporary. A person's fundamental right to exercise their religion is given greater weight than your non-fundamental right to wear glasses and your temporary inability to afford laser vision surgery.
You show that you understand this with your statement "Religion is the redheaded stepchild of protected classes. It is protected because society feels you shouldn't HAVE to change your religion, not because you can't", so I don't know exactly what you're getting at. You seem to be saying on the one hand that religion is not a suspect class and then on the other admitting that it is. Is it the term "immutable" that you're worried about? The "immutability" of a religious class derives from the fundamental right of a person to exercise his religion. While it's true that it is, at least physically, possible to change your religion and it's not physically possible to change your race color or national origin, the court is not going to make you change your religion since it is a fundamental right. What's a choice? Being gay? I think that the whole point of people seeking Equal Protection for gay people is that being gay is not a choice.
I'm at least fairly sure that's the comparison she was trying to make.