Bush Expected to Veto 'Hate Crimes' Bill

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by spudcon

The simple flaw in hate crime laws is that it makes murder of one person more serious than murder of a different person. Why would a gay/black/policeman/muslim/white person be more valuable to society than anyone else.

The argument behind hate crimes are not, or at least shouldn't be, that blacks or gays are more important to society than straight whites, just that killing someone just because of their skin color or sexuality is worst than killing someone for another reason.

Whether you agree with a hate crime being worst than regular manslaughter or not, when it comes to murder the justice system does judge by intent so it does follow the pattern. If I kill someone in self-defense, kill someone by accident, and kill someone in cold blood I'm going to get different time in jails for each if any jail time at all.