Never a Bad Idea to Outlaw Hate

This week's "On Faith" question at the Washington Post asks: "Congress is expected to expand federal hate crimes laws to add "sexual orientation" to a list that already includes "race, color, religion or national origin." Is this necessary? Should there be special laws against crimes motivated by intolerance, bigotry and hatred? Isn't a crime a crime?

I fail to see how protecting a community from violence and hatred could ever be a bad idea.

How different things might have been for the first Christians if the ancient Roman Empire had such laws in place! When Peter and the apostles preached in the temple, the angry mobs were “enraged and wanted to kill them”. Only one voice of reason prevailed, and the crowd “simply” had them flogged.

Hate crimes based on religion is listed as the second highest cause on the statistical lists published by the FBI. Any one of us could be a target for anyone who hates. This legislation protects us all, as individuals and as community.

I wish it weren't necessary to add yet another label to the federal hates crimes that already exist. Knowing that it is against the law to perpetuate a crime involving “assault, murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, attack with an explosive device, arson, etc.” towards anyone should be enough. There should be no need to expand the language of the laws that already in place, but evidence is compelling that there is a need.

According to FBI statistics dating back to the early 1990’s, when the term “hate crime” was first factored into reports, the number of such crimes reported by law officials hasn’t changed much. In 1995 and again in 2005, there were approximately 8,000 hate crimes reported. The numbers were only slightly higher in 2000 (approximately 8,400).

While more than half of those crimes were motivated by racial prejudice, crimes against religion and sexual orientation accounted for between 30-35% of the rest. Those numbers do not reflect the incidents that go unreported. About 40% of homosexual adults report being physically attacked because of their perceived sexual orientation.

The language of the current hate crimes legislation evidently is not specific enough. Additional labels are needed if the laws are going to protect those who most need protection.

There is a mis-perception that adding more specific language to the hate crimes bill will limit American’s freedom of speech. This is false. There is a mis-perception that hate crimes only hurt the victims, and this is also false. Hate crimes are perpetuated against communities, not just individuals. As HR 1913, a hate crimes bill passed by the federal House in 2009, states: "Such violence disrupts the tranquility and safety of communities and is deeply divisive."

As long as freedom of speech protects the rights of all Americans to speak their mind, there will be those who abuse others with hateful and hate-filled words. There will be talk-radio hosts who make outrageous claims such as the one I heard a few weeks ago on WLW who said something along the lines of: “The cause of obesity is that we aren’t allowed to bully the fat kids anymore. They don’t know they are fat, because we can’t tell them. So they get fatter.”

There is little protection from name calling or verbal attacks, but there is protection from assault for those who are the most vulnerable. The question is, is it enough? My answer is, not yet.