Is Being Gay A Sin? Does It Need Amelioration?

[CASteinman]

Do you think you were born heterosexual?

Pretty much like everyone else.

[CASteinman]

Unbelieveable. Does carving the word Dyke into the stomach of a lesbian by three masked men work for you as a hate crime????

I don't believe in the concept of hate crimes.

Would you like to read more about gays being beaten up, bashed in the face and murdered?

No, but I do not believe it happens "left and right". I believe it happens far less on a incident basis than other types of crimes.

[Robert F. Smith]

I don't believe in the concept of hate crimes.

Law enforcement and our legislatures do and that provides the normative concept which most of us work with on a regular basis. There is a world of difference between being beaten during a robbery, and being beaten just because one is a member of a minority -- with that as the proven motive.

I do not believe it happens "left and right". I believe it happens far less on a incident basis than other types of crimes.

So this is a straightforward statistical matter for you? Take the total number of crimes committed and divide by those that are motivated by greed by those that are motivated by hate? Does being bullied at school count?

[ShawFanX]

I don't believe in the concept of hate crimes.

And you are to be commended for being aware of and standing against that particular flight from liberal democratic civilization back into feudalism.

[ShawFanX]

Law enforcement and our legislatures do and that provides the normative concept which most of us work with on a regular basis. There is a world of difference between being beaten during a robbery, and being beaten just because one is a member of a minority -- with that as the proven motive.

No, there isn't. None at all. Unless, on the other hand, the state and/or other elements of society seeking power wish to single out certain other groups based on status with regard to other status groups and increase punishments inflicted for crimes on the that basis. In a free, liberal democratic, rule of law based social order, crimes are punished not for motive but for conduct. If I beat you senseless, it is irrelevant in a non-feudal on non-collectivist social order why I beat you. Motive only establishes that an act was volitional, not that it occurred. Beating other people senseless is a crime because beating other people senseless in understood as immoral and as a violation of the unalienable rights one brings into this world at birth and which good government guarantees and protects on that basis for all equally.

Beating and robbing someone to buy drugs, and beating and robbing a black person because he was black is precisely the same behavior, and in a free, constitutional republic grounded in the concept of equality under the law, is liable to precisely the same sanctions. Motive is irrelevant in such a society because subjective factors such as racial bigotry, need for drug money, revenge for an insult, or anger at one's boss for being fired, are only the animating feelings and ideas that motivated the behavior. So long as no behavior occurs, no crime is committed. Beating someone senseless is a crime, and it must be actually committed in a free society before it becomes a crime. "Hate crimes" at their very core, are thought crimes, and laws which provide for greater punishment for beating a person from within a defined identity group, than for beating qua beating (or murder qua murder, or rape qua rape etc.) on the basis of personal subjective emotional or psychological factors grounded in the group status relation of one's victim to oneself, rather than in the crime itself, equally applicable to all, is a precipitous retreat from liberal democracy and equality under the law toward the status based relations of non-democratic societies and of pre-modern feudal states in which different classes of society; commoners, craftsmen, merchants, landed aristocracy, and royalty, all interacted on the basis of rules and laws different for each and carrying inherent biases based on the class status of each group.

We have now transferred much of this away from blood and caste to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other politically correct identity classifications, but the same mentality and intent has guided that movement over the last forty or so years.

[Robert F. Smith]

No, there isn't. None at all. Unless, on the other hand, the state and/or other elements of society seeking power wish to single out certain other groups based on status with regard to other status groups and increase punishments inflicted for crimes on the that basis. In a free, liberal democratic, rule of law based social order, crimes are punished not for motive but for conduct. If I beat you senseless, it is irrelevant in a non-feudal on non-collectivist social order why I beat you. Motive only establishes that an act was volitional, not that it occurred. Beating other people senseless is a crime because beating other people senseless in understood as immoral and as a violation of the unalienable rights one brings into this world at birth and which good government guarantees and protects on that basis for all equally.

Beating and robbing someone to buy drugs, and beating and robbing a black person because he was black is precisely the same behavior, and in a free, constitutional republic grounded in the concept of equality under the law, is liable to precisely the same sanctions. Motive is irrelevant in such a society because subjective factors such as racial bigotry, need for drug money, revenge for an insult, or anger at one's boss for being fired, are only the animating feelings and ideas that motivated the behavior. So long as no behavior occurs, no crime is committed. Beating someone senseless is a crime, and it must be actually committed in a free society before it becomes a crime. "Hate crimes" at their very core, are thought crimes, and laws which provide for greater punishment for beating a person from within a defined identity group, than for beating qua beating (or murder qua murder, or rape qua rape etc.) on the basis of personal subjective emotional or psychological factors grounded in the group status relation of one's victim to oneself, rather than in the crime itself, equally applicable to all, is a precipitous retreat from liberal democracy and equality under the law toward the status based relations of non-democratic societies and of pre-modern feudal states in which different classes of society; commoners, craftsmen, merchants, landed aristocracy, and royalty, all interacted on the basis of rules and laws different for each and carrying inherent biases based on the class status of each group.

We have now transferred much of this away from blood and caste to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other politically correct identity classifications, but the same mentality and intent has guided that movement over the last forty or so years.

If you don't like the decisions rendered by our legislatures and courts for ideological rather than practical reasons, there are a great many people who would agree with you.

However, under the rule of law enacted by a legislature selected by the citizenry we must all cooperate to reduce the problems we face, including for example assaults on police officers or judges or legislators (or other public officers) or other groups selected for intimidation. As a practical matter, an assault on them is an assault on the government, just as a rape of one ordinary person is seen as a crime against the entire population (since more may be raped if there is no conviction). Our prosecutions are carried out in the name of the people, and special enhancements of penalties are sought if the legislature (hence the people) have decided that such enhanced penalties are needed owing to the especially heinous nature of the crime. You may not care that such a crime was carried out as a direct result of hate, and you may define such a violation as a "thought crime," but many others would simply say that we cannot have entire groups being lynched and intimidated as a group (Jews, Mormons, blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, etc.).

The enhancements are not intended to make you happy or sad, but rather to deflect the commission of such crimes. Our legislatures have decided that they are not simply ordinary crimes. You can disagree with that, but your unfortunate mischaracterization of the reasons for such rules is not only inaccurate and ideological, but offensive to polite society.

[CASteinman]

Law enforcement and our legislatures do and that provides the normative concept which most of us work with on a regular basis.

Yeah, legislatures do that unfortunately. I think this is a huge fail for our society. It makes people unequal under the law -- some people are more privileged than others -- and penalizes "thought" (or what we think someone thought) rather than act. It makes the same crime -- different crimes. I consider it a terrible thing.

There is a world of difference between being beaten during a robbery, and being beaten just because one is a member of a minority -- with that as the proven motive.

I don't think that there is any difference at all. Bones break, flesh torn and life taken regardless of the motive. And no one will ever be able to convince me that such violence is only full of hatred and emnity when just a homosexual or a Jew or a Mormon or whatever is the subject of the attack but when its a White Anglo Saxon Protestant doing it to another White Anglo Saxon Protestant -- its all love and peaches.

A bogus idea.

So this is a straightforward statistical matter for you?

It could be.

Take the total number of crimes committed and divide by those that are motivated by greed by those that are motivated by hate?

I don't believe that there are any reliable statistics on the motivation of such crimes. I do believe that there could be statistics where motives for torture and murder are imputed to people, but I consider this to be fraud or sorcery. Even if it weren't though, I would have doubts that the statistics demonstrating percentage of total were reliable until there was no substantial trending serial autocorrelation in the incident rates.

Does being bullied at school count?

When I was growing up there were three kinds of kids: Kids who bullied, kids who got bullied and kids who did neither. There was no such thing as bullying a homosexual because such ideas were not even considered.

But bullying was everywhere. Kids can be horrible to one another.

So I do not consider it anything new. Just some folk make a big deal of it when a "gay" kid is bullied and then commits suicide. Oh well. "Straight" kids do that too and you don't hear about it as much.

Edited July 25, 2012 by CASteinman

[ShawFanX]

If you don't like the decisions rendered by our legislatures and courts for ideological rather than practical reasons, there are a great many people who would agree with you.

I know.

However, under the rule of law enacted by a legislature selected by the citizenry we must all cooperate to reduce the problems we face, including for example assaults on police officers or judges or legislators (or other public officers) or other groups selected for intimidation.

But those aren't status groups singled out ideologically and legally because of inherent characteristics, or what are considered to be inherent, such as "sexual orientation." Those are job classifications - hats human beings wear.

As a practical matter, an assault on them is an assault on the government, just as a rape of one ordinary person is seen as a crime against the entire population (since more may be raped if there is no conviction). Our prosecutions are carried out in the name of the people, and special enhancements of penalties are sought if the legislature (hence the people) have decided that such enhanced penalties are needed owing to the especially heinous nature of the crime. You may not care that such a crime was carried out as a direct result of hate, and you may define such a violation as a "thought crime," but many others would simply say that we cannot have entire groups being lynched and intimidated as a group (Jews, Mormons, blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, etc.).

This is a collectivist mindset, and it is simply inconsistent with a free, liberty and rule of law based civilization. When a woman is raped, all woman have not been raped. A law has been violated that labels rape as a crime and punishes it as such, and the perpetrator is considered an offender against society who must "pay his debt to society" in prison and/or in other ways, but this is purely rhetorical language, signifying that the crime he committed was inconsistent with civilization norms that allow a free, peaceful social order to exist. But he doesn't go to prison for committing a crime against "society," but against that woman there, sitting on the witness stand. Whether she is black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Eskimo, or whatever, is of no relevance in a rule of law and equality under the law based social order. What is relevant is that the crime was committed, and that the overwhelming weight of facts and evidence points to the defendant as the one who perpetrated the act.

When we sentence him, under a classical liberal understanding of law and equality under the law, we do not add ten years because the victim was black, or Hispanic, or a lesbian. Why? Not only because that has nothing whatever to do with the nature of the actual crime per se, as actually carried out (the only reason the criminal is in court), but because this creates special status groups within the culture and within law with special dispensations, considerations, and privileges not allowed or extended to other groups on the basis of inherent characteristics. Initiatives such as Affirmative Action and racial preferences in college admissions perform the same function. We used to call that "racism." and "discrimination." Now its termed, "diversity."

Adding ten years to your sentence because you beat a black person to death because you don't like black people, as over against a lighter sentence if you beat the same black person to death because he cut you off at the interchange, creates precedents and opens doors to further expansions of such practices that would, it should be obvious, be fatal to a free, open, self governing political and social order. It would, if followed out to its logical conclusion, mean the end of liberty as understood in the classical liberal and American political and social tradition. "Hate crime" is really nothing more than discriminatory jurisprudence. and mirrors what used to happen to blacks in the old South. If a white man raped a white woman, he got ten years (or whatever). If a black man raped a white woman, he got lynched.

Why are we returning to this paradigm, and moving away from the constitutional republic and the idea of equality under the law created by our Founders under the inspiration of God? If I burn my boss's house down because he fired me, and I would normally get 10 years, should I get 15 for also yelling racial epithets as I threw the match? If so, we are no longer living in a rule of law or equality under the law based political and legal order, but in a feudal, status based society in which different sets of laws apply to different legally recognized identity groups, some with greater privileges and status than others under plastic, ever changing conditions.

The enhancements are not intended to make you happy or sad, but rather to deflect the commission of such crimes. Our legislatures have decided that they are not simply ordinary crimes. You can disagree with that, but your unfortunate mischaracterization of the reasons for such rules is not only inaccurate and ideological, but offensive to polite society.

Crime is deflected by the threat of punishment. Thought crime against specially singled out and preferentially treated identity groups that exists independently of the actual physical commission of the crime itself is ideological by definition. We are already well into ideological territory here, and there's no way out of it other than a return to equality under law and move away from picking and choosing levels of punishment based upon ideologically derived hierarchies of status under which disparate systems of law apply.

Edited July 25, 2012 by ShawFanX

[ShawFanX]

Take the total number of crimes committed and divide by those that are motivated by greed by those that are motivated by hate?

Which is worse, Robert, and how would the punishment be different: The Holocaust (people killed because of what they were), or Stalin's engineered famine in the Ukraine (people killed because of who they were)?

How would you devide up and determine punishemnt for such crimes between the Kulaks and the Jews?

[CV75]

While those who are not heterosexual do have hate crimes committed against them, and these crimes are reported freely, this is no rationale for moral acceptance of homosexual behavior.

Edited July 25, 2012 by CV75

[USU78]

Does carving the word Dyke into the stomach of a lesbian by three masked men work for you as a hate crime?

I still don't see how/why it's either useful or more moral to add a 3rd felony to the already felonious acts of assault and maiming.

Does anybody really believe hate crime legislation decreases assaults?

I assert that the fact that hate crime legislation gets passed angers people and causes more assaults than would otherwise exist . . . and I do so with exactly the same amount of evidence as those who lobby for and pass such legislation.

[Robert F. Smith]

I still don't see how/why it's either useful or more moral to add a 3rd felony to the already felonious acts of assault and maiming.

Does anybody really believe hate crime legislation decreases assaults?

I assert that the fact that hate crime legislation gets passed angers people and causes more assaults than would otherwise exist . . . and I do so with exactly the same amount of evidence as those who lobby for and pass such legislation.

Quantity of evidence is probably not as useful as quality, but the fact is that neither side seems able to convince the other. So we are left with a variety of theories of penology (punishment) rather than an actual effort to prevent crime, and no one is sure why crime rates go up or down (currently going down for a number of years).

One thing that enhancements do is to keep criminals out of circulation for much longer periods, and that is very important since burglars commit a huge number of burglaries before they are caught, and likewise take the opportunity to rape if they find someone home, sometimes killing the victim only to avoid having a witness. This applies to a whole range of felonies, such as bank robbery -- to the degree that following a just-released bank robber around for several days typically leads to a new bank robbery being foiled (LAPD and LASD have special units which do this). These guys are such recidivists. Lengthier three strikes law incarcerations have also been helpful in keeping the public safe -- which I think should be the prime directive of the justice system.

NYC Police Commissioner Bratton (later LAPD Chief) had a theory that even small, penny ante crime should be prosecuted. This broke with the prevailing attitude of NYPD. Bratton's rationale turned out to be correct: The turnstyle jumper turns out to be a regular scofflaw, often with a record and wants or warrants. Citing (and booking if warranted) such scofflaws led to rapidly reduced crime in NYC over a long period. The stats were clear, which verifies that to control crime the punishment should be swift and sure.

Moreover, one really has to ask who is it that gets angry at hate crime legislation? Are these the same guys and gals who enjoyed the special privileges associated with keeping the Black people down in the Old South? Are they the same people who hated and vilified Dr. King? Did they tell off color jokes? Did they secretly admire Herr Hitler and his Master Race? If good people are not making them angry, they are not doing the right thing. Anyhow, those who commit crime in a fit of pique are the very people we need to put away for long periods. They are sick puppies.

[Robert F. Smith]

Which is worse, Robert, and how would the punishment be different: The Holocaust (people killed because of what they were), or Stalin's engineered famine in the Ukraine (people killed because of who they were)?

How would you devide up and determine punishemnt for such crimes between the Kulaks and the Jews?

One thing I am certain of, Loran, is that ideologues will always make special excuses for this or that crime being no worse than any other depending heavily on the preconceptions they bring to the table. To them there is no concept of sincere discussion and real give and take, only debaters points. For them real solutions to practical problems must first be measured by the rules of a hidebound ideology rather than in the spirit of justice and charity.

The utter contempt indicated by such a question reminds me very much of the sophistic quandaries posed by those who seek to catch a man in his words, rather than a motive to seek some sort of accord on matters on which we agree, or even a willingness to abide by the rules enacted by legislatures or judges. Do you even care about civil society? Does it mean anything at all to you? Or is it to be jettisoned along with the Constitution simply because you are unhappy with some of the interim results? I am often unhappy with the interim policies or results, but I don't claim that we need to get rid of the system -- which seems the tenor of your comments. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited July 25, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

While those who are not heterosexual do have hate crimes committed against them, and these crimes are reported freely, this is no rationale for moral acceptance of homosexual behavior.

Of course not. Who suggested that? This is supposed to be a free country, and we should all be free to worship sex, money, drugs, Mom, apple pie, Jesus, or whatever we wish (LDS Article of Faith #11). Some of us also believe in honoring, obeying, and sustaining the law (Article of Faith #12). A pretty good combination, and allows Free Agency to have real meaning.

[Robert F. Smith]

Yeah, legislatures do that unfortunately. I think this is a huge fail for our society. It makes people unequal under the law -- some people are more privileged than others -- and penalizes "thought" (or what we think someone thought) rather than act. It makes the same crime -- different crimes. I consider it a terrible thing.

I don't think that there is any difference at all. Bones break, flesh torn and life taken regardless of the motive. And no one will ever be able to convince me that such violence is only full of hatred and emnity when just a homosexual or a Jew or a Mormon or whatever is the subject of the attack but when its a White Anglo Saxon Protestant doing it to another White Anglo Saxon Protestant -- its all love and peaches.

A bogus idea.

The evidence required to prove a "hate" crime is immense, and many prosecutors avoid even bringing an enhancement unless the evidence is overwhelming. So, I am not sure what you mean by "thought" crime. No one is prosecuted for thoughts, but for actual actions taken along with evidence that the purpose was to fulfill hate -- such as killing someone and writing "kike" or "dyke" on the body after confiding in others that this was your intention. Burning a cross in someone's front yard is not a thought crime, but an act typically in furtherance of well organized hate. The same applies to terrorist acts by radical Islamists. Blowing up someone or flying a plane into a building is one thing, but yelling "Allah hu akbar!" while doing it suggests religious hate. Some individual didn't decide that, but the legislature you elected did. You don't like the law? Then complain to your legislator, or vote for the other guy next election. Meantime, we need to honor, obey, and sustain the law.

I don't believe that there are any reliable statistics on the motivation of such crimes. I do believe that there could be statistics where motives for torture and murder are imputed to people, but I consider this to be fraud or sorcery. Even if it weren't though, I would have doubts that the statistics demonstrating percentage of total were reliable until there was no substantial trending serial autocorrelation in the incident rates.

As a practical matter, would you prefer to put these people away for long periods, or do you want to eliminate any enhancements? As a prosecutor, would you use the enhancements?

When I was growing up there were three kinds of kids: Kids who bullied, kids who got bullied and kids who did neither. There was no such thing as bullying a homosexual because such ideas were not even considered.

But bullying was everywhere. Kids can be horrible to one another.

So I do not consider it anything new. Just some folk make a big deal of it when a "gay" kid is bullied and then commits suicide. Oh well. "Straight" kids do that too and you don't hear about it as much.

We both grew up a long time ago. Do you think things are just the same nowadays? No need for special attention to bullying? If so, what kind?

[california boy]

I don't believe in the concept of hate crimes.

No, but I do not believe it happens "left and right". I believe it happens far less on a incident basis than other types of crimes.

You don't believe that some people will attack an individual that they don't know, have no reason to, except the fact that they are bigoted against that minority??? Because this is what we are talking about here. Hate crimes do exist. Whether they require "extra" punishment is another discussion. But to imply that gays Jews, Mormons blacks and other minorities are not attacked simply because they are minorities that are hated to the point that provokes such attacks is really an unbelieveable comment. Perhaps you would like to clairify your statement.

[Robert F. Smith]

This is a collectivist mindset, and it is simply inconsistent with a free, liberty and rule of law based civilization. When a woman is raped, all woman have not been raped. A law has been violated that labels rape as a crime and punishes it as such, and the perpetrator is considered an offender against society who must "pay his debt to society" in prison and/or in other ways, but this is purely rhetorical language, signifying that the crime he committed was inconsistent with civilization norms that allow a free, peaceful social order to exist. But he doesn't go to prison for committing a crime against "society," but against that woman there, sitting on the witness stand. Whether she is black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Eskimo, or whatever, is of no relevance in a rule of law and equality under the law based social order. What is relevant is that the crime was committed, and that the overwhelming weight of facts and evidence points to the defendant as the one who perpetrated the act.

I guess a "collectivist" label makes it convenient for you to ignore the law which declares that the crime is being prosecuted by the people of such and such a state, rather than by the victim. Indeed, the victim need not even cooperate (and might not due to intimidation). Again, for ideological reasons, you reject the practical need to lock up rapists (because it is usually a career for them) in order to protect society in general. You give short shrift to such concerns, and muddy the waters with irrelevant palaver about Eskimos and such.

When we sentence him, under a classical liberal understanding of law and equality under the law, we do not add ten years because the victim was black, or Hispanic, or a lesbian. Why? Not only because that has nothing whatever to do with the nature of the actual crime per se, as actually carried out (the only reason the criminal is in court), but because this creates special status groups within the culture and within law with special dispensations, considerations, and privileges not allowed or extended to other groups on the basis of inherent characteristics. Initiatives such as Affirmative Action and racial preferences in college admissions perform the same function. We used to call that "racism." and "discrimination." Now its termed, "diversity."

Again, for the purpose of obfuscation, you bring in matters not at issue. Why are you not engaging the fact that your legislature enacted hate crime legislation with which you disagree and that you are rejecting thereby the 12th Article of Faith. You knew when you said that that hate crime enhancements can only be applied when there is excellent evidence of singling out someone from a group which is hated and vilified. Your legislators decided that, your elected D.A. decided to prosecute it as such, and you whine about it?! Is that good citizenship?

Adding ten years to your sentence because you beat a black person to death because you don't like black people, as over against a lighter sentence if you beat the same black person to death because he cut you off at the interchange, creates precedents and opens doors to further expansions of such practices that would, it should be obvious, be fatal to a free, open, self governing political and social order. It would, if followed out to its logical conclusion, mean the end of liberty as understood in the classical liberal and American political and social tradition. "Hate crime" is really nothing more than discriminatory jurisprudence. and mirrors what used to happen to blacks in the old South. If a white man raped a white woman, he got ten years (or whatever). If a black man raped a white woman, he got lynched.

Why are we returning to this paradigm, and moving away from the constitutional republic and the idea of equality under the law created by our Founders under the inspiration of God? If I burn my boss's house down because he fired me, and I would normally get 10 years, should I get 15 for also yelling racial epithets as I threw the match? If so, we are no longer living in a rule of law or equality under the law based political and legal order, but in a feudal, status based society in which different sets of laws apply to different legally recognized identity groups, some with greater privileges and status than others under plastic, ever changing conditions.

So we are back to the smoke screen of your "feudal status based society"?! And the mythical absence of the "rule of law or equality"?! I met a lawyer incarcerated in a federal prison a few years back. It never occurred to him as he ranted and raved about the unfairness of the Feds that he could have honored and sustained the law and avoided prison, if he so chose. He was part of a Mormon group there which I visited on Sundays, all of whom had committed non-violent crimes. Many of them apparently thought that they could ignore the law, make excuses, and reject the 12th Article of Faith.

Crime is deflected by the threat of punishment. Thought crime against specially singled out and preferentially treated identity groups that exists independently of the actual physical commission of the crime itself is ideological by definition. We are already well into ideological territory here, and there's no way out of it other than a return to equality under law and move away from picking and choosing levels of punishment based upon ideologically derived hierarchies of status under which disparate systems of law apply.

Practicality and ideology do not often intertwine, but if you want it badly enough only your imagination is required to make the connection. Oh, and tell your legislator how you feel and see how quickly he acts to follow your advice.

Edited July 25, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[CASteinman]

No one is prosecuted for thoughts

Not quite so. Hate is a type of thinking and the trials include prosecution for that type of thinking in order to make something that is already illegal even more penalized -- thus creating two categories of "crime" from a single type of act. Furthermore, this is done by virtue of some quality of the victim, thus making some people more important in the eyes of the law than other people.

This is a travesty and is very unfortunate.

You don't like the law? Then complain to your legislator, or vote for the other guy next election. Meantime, we need to honor, obey, and sustain the law.

I despise these laws, I complain often and I have no role in honoring, obeying or sustaining that law.

As a practical matter, would you prefer to put these people away for long periods, or do you want to eliminate any enhancements? As a prosecutor, would you use the enhancements?

I would want the punishment to suit the degree of violence in the crime. Once a person murders, I believe that the burden should be on them to show why they should not be killed by the state.

We both grew up a long time ago. Do you think things are just the same nowadays? No need for special attention to bullying? If so, what kind?

I think things are the same as they were before and I think bullying is a bad thing. But I do not believe that so-called "gay" youth are more targeted than others --- they are just more susceptible. I think homosexuality is co-morbid with suicide even in very tolerant societies and even in older ages.

[CASteinman]

You don't believe that some people will attack an individual that they don't know, have no reason to, except the fact that they are bigoted against that minority???

I believe that evil people will do what evil people do because they have evil in their hearts. Their excuses will vary and are irrelevant.

Hate crimes do exist.

They shouldn't. There should just be "crimes" and no special designation according to "thought". I do not believe in making special laws regarding certain thoughts.

to imply that gays Jews, Mormons blacks and other minorities are not attacked simply because they are minorities that are hated to the point that provokes such attacks is really an unbelieveable comment. Perhaps you would like to clairify your statement.

Its simple: Evil people will do what evil people will do because they have evil in their hearts. Their excuses will vary and are not relevant to the fact that what they do is evil.

If someone tortures and murders another person -- does it make it less evil if that person is the same race, religion and orientation as their victim? What a ridiculous idea.

These laws are all about making some people more important in the eyes of the law than other people -- a travesty of justice.