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Say hellooooo Nany State!!! | by DesertRat66 | 2006-11-19 12:55:59 |
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Informal poll: How many people | by thread_killer | 2005-02-14 13:27:44 |
| Greater penalty, no. |
by zelda |
2005-02-14 14:59:56 |
The use I see in hate-crime laws would be to avoid the "blame the victim" defense: Your Honor, I *had* to beat him to a pulp! He was gay, and would have polluted me/my children/my neighborhood if I hadn't gotten rid of him! Slightly more sophisticated versions of that have been known to work, especially where the judge or jury sympathises with the prejudice-- it gets played off as some kind of "self-defense."
A well-written hate-crime law, IMO, would state clearly that distaste or disapproval are not justifications for violence, and that attempting to impose your private values forcibly on others is part of the crime, not part of the defense. Then they would leave the penalties exactly the same as for the same crime committed for some other motive. That doesn't seem to be how most of them are written, though. |
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