In 1998, 21-year-old college student Matthew Shepard was tortured and killed by two men in Wyoming. During their trial, it was revealed that these men targeted Shepard because he was gay. As a result, legislation was introduced at both the state and federal level to amend existing hate-crime legislation to include sexual orientation. The Matthew Shepard Act was passed through both houses of Congress in 2007, but was vetoed by President Bush.
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives once again debated the extension of federal hate-crime legislation to include sexual orientation. Here is what a reasonable objection to the legislation might look like: "While a tragedy, the existence of hate-crime laws would not have saved Matthew Shepard's life. The despicable act which took place is already illegal. It is called murder, and his murderer's are in prison serving two consecutive life sentences."
Here is what a less reasonable objection looks like: We don't need to impose additional penalties on perpetrators of hate-crimes, because hate-crimes never happen!
"If you didn't vote for this bill -- against this bill and against this
rule for anything else, you could vote against it because we are
spending additional money. I also would like to point out that there
was a bill -- the hate crimes bill that's called the Matthew Shepard
bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a
young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the
commitment of a robbery. it wasn't because he was gay. This -- the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."
A hoax! He wasn't really killed because he was gay! And that proves
that NOBODY WAS EVER KILLED BECAUSE THEY WERE GAY EVER! Therefore, a
hate-crime bill is unnecessary!
The foolishness of this line of reasoning is obvious: while you can
oppose hate-crime legislation for sound reasons, the lack of existence
of crimes motivated by prejudice is not one of them. The only truth revealed by Rep. Foxx's statement is the truth of
her own bigotry.
On a related note, recent political polls have indicated that the
number of respondents identifying themselves as Republicans as dropped
to 20%. It is not because people are becoming more liberal - most of the change in party identification
is from Republican to Independent, not Republican to Democrat (Sen.
Arlen Specter notwithstanding). It's not the people that are changing,
it is the party. People don't want to call themselves Republican,
because Republicans elect politicians who say things like this.
As
the Republican party loses more and more centrist members, it has no
choice to cling more and more tightly to its ultra-conservative base. It moves further to right, abandoning more and more members, until only the Virginia Foxxes of the world are left. This is the death spiral.
Ok - we'll see how Rep. Foxx changes her tune, when she and others like her are targeted simply because they are Republican. I can see it happening if idiots like her don't shut up. Of course,if the Republican party keeps going in their current direction, the general public may not consider it a hate crime. Perhaps justifiable homicide would be in order.
sam @ April 30, 2009 12:02 PM
Idiot.
I don't know how else to respond to these mouth-breathers that the Republican Party keeps producing.
yaworm @ April 30, 2009 2:57 PM
I think Foxx might have watched 20/20 and thought the take-away message was that the robbery element was definitively the sole contributor to Shepard's death. The most hilarious line comes on page 3, from the guy who beat Shepard: "I would say it wasn't a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him."
We (human beings) are very susceptible to characterizing an outcome to be the result of a single cause. Shepard was gay, so it was a hate-related crime. The perps wanted his money, so it was a theft-related crime. Pick a side, lest ye lack "common sense." Single-factor focus in rhetoric is like Eddy in Tekken 3; any dummy can use it to convince ignorant audiences that he knows what he's doing. Eddy is how MADD made DUI laws so ridiculously and unnecessarily stringent. He's also Bill Fontes' bread and butter. Go Eddy.
Fat Tony @ April 30, 2009 11:51 PM
I don't think I've ever seen a political argument boiled down to calling Bill Fontes a Tekken bitch quite so eloquently. Michael, if there were a Pulitzer awarded for blog comments, you'd have just earned a nomination.
To Jesse's original point: I am a registered Republican. I am not a mouth breather. In the primary, I voted for Ron Paul and wrote in Gumby on all the non-President categories. In the "real" election, I voted party-line Democrat. It's not the Arlen Specters of the world that the Republicans should fear, it is people like me. The continual rightward drift is scaring the living shit out of the few remaining educated Republicans. At this rate, in our lifetime there will be a total of 113 teeth in the entire Republican party.
jesse @ May 1, 2009 8:09 AM
That's my point exactly. When you see only 20% of people identifying themselves as Republicans, its not the people who have changed, its the definition of Republican that has changed.
It isn't a hate crime bucseae the victims were white. The aggressors were young black men. And the Summit County prosecutor is afraid of the backlash. Funny, though, Akron is a mostly white, Appalachian city. They teach 'readin', 'ritin', and the road to Akron in W Virginia. Surprising.
It isn't a hate crime bucseae the victims were white. The aggressors were young black men. And the Summit County prosecutor is afraid of the backlash. Funny, though, Akron is a mostly white, Appalachian city. They teach 'readin', 'ritin', and the road to Akron in W Virginia. Surprising.
