The No Kool Aid Zone

Are Church-Burnings a Hate Crime? Who Cares?

Posted by Byron March 9, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Filed Under In a Handbasket | Leave a Comment |

I sure don’t, because “hate crimes” legislation represents governmental silliness at its finest.

I’m driving home for lunch, listening to Mike Gallagher today, and he’s talking about the Alabama church burnings, and about the fact that the prosecutor in the case, and the governor of Alabama, have both been clear to say that these were not “hate crimes”. Gallagher asked a valid question: had nine synagogues been burned to the ground, or nine gay bars, does anyone seriously doubt that “hate crimes” legislation would be invoked? Of course it would…

And that would be a shame, because the whole concept of “hate crimes” is silly beyond belief. Shamefully, it’s all the rage among so many of our wonderful politicians.

Let’s break it down for a bit, shall we? Couple of main problems with “hate crimes” legislation: one, does it actually accomplish anything? Suppose someone murders a child of mine (God forbid). I’m talking cold-blood. Does it matter to me one whit whether the individual “hated” my child, or didn’t? Does it somehow comfort me for an individual to approach me and say, “well, you know, your child might have been brutally murdered, but take comfort: we have no evidence that the perp actually hated your child”? Would it comfort you? If someone murders my child, I want justice to be done, “justice” meaning that the act committed receives due recompense. Period. I don’t give a flying rip why the person did the horrible deed; I just want him to pay for his actions.

Further, what is it supposed to accomplish? Is it supposed to help people stop hating each other? Talk about a liberal utopian fantasy; please! Does anyone in their wildest dreams imagine any sane individual actually stopping to think, “Sheesh, you know, I’d better not hate ________, because if I do, and then I commit a crime against them, I might get more time tacked onto my sentence.”? It does have an effect on me, but a negative one: it makes me feel a little bit more contemptuous toward silly politicians (no, no; it is not justifiable homicide to shoot a silly politician). Getting past the feel-goodism of contemporary liberalism, can anyone suggest one realistic benefit to “hate crimes” legislation?

Two, it slaughters the concept of equal justice before the law. The concept of a “hate crime” punishes, not crime, but thought. Yes, to those of you in whom memories of “1984″ are stirred; it sounds like something right out of Orwell, because it is. The judge and/or jury has to get inside the mind of the individual to discern motive (a decidedly unbiblical notion, by the way), and then that judge/jury has to add additional punishment on the basis of what they imagine the individual to have been thinking at the time he committed the crime! Frankly, I don’t care what those three boys in Alabama were thinking when they set the churches on fire; I don’t care if they did it as a joke that got out of hand (the official word), or whether they did it because they hate God, or whether they did it because they hate Christians (myself included), or because they hate Baptists, or because…it just doesn’t matter one iota. They should face justice—strong justice—for deliberately burning down buildings—period, end of story, what’s for dinner?

So to Mike Gallagher, yeah, Mike, you make a point; if we’re going to call it a “hate crime” to burn down nine gay bars—as we certainly would—then why isn’t this classified as such as well? But the bigger point is, “what do we accomplish by naming anything a ‘hate crime’?” And the answer is, absolutely nothing.