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Originally Posted by Nephythys
But of ALL of those distinctions-it doesn't matter to me if the victim is gay, straight, black, white.....the victims are equal.
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Perhaps not, but we as a society are already perfectly okay with creating different levels of punishment based solely on motive. By your earlier logic, if I shoot someone in the head, my punishment should be no different if I did it because he's some stranger that spilled my beer at a bar and I happened to have my gun on me than if I spent months plotting to kill someone because they hit on my wife once. The actual act is the same, different punishments would amount to punishing thought, no?
Like I said, I don't necessarily think that hate crime legislation is an effective thing to do, but "we can't punish motive because that's being thought-police" isn't a argument against it that holds much water because, well, we already do that with no objection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nephythys
We can all feel fear of some sort of crime-
Maybe women are more impacted by fear of rape and murder.
Mothers may fear someone killing their children.
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Which is why rape carries a stiffer penalty than simple assault. Crimes against children can carry larger penalties than crimes against adults. Domestic violence stronger penalties than punching a guy at a bar. We already have many dividing lines where, as a society, we feel it necessary to make a point of discouraging specific behavior.