Hate is such a strong word

" Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noise…”

-Cyril Connolly

On October 6, 1998 a college man was tied to a remote fence post in the backlands of Laramie, Wyoming. He was left there for more than eighteen hours in almost freezing temperatures. Two bikers found him; at first thinking he was a scarecrow. On October the twelfth he died while in a coma. His name was Matthew Shepard and he was gay (www.mathewshepardresource.org). The trial that tried Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson for the kidnapping and murder of Matthew Shepard spawned both support and scorn for the issue of Hate Crime Legislation.

On January of 2001 three years after the incident, MTV networks produced and aired a made for TV movie entitled Anatomy of a Hate Crime: The Mathew Shepard story. The movie launched their yearlong campaign- Fight for your rights: Take a stand against discrimination. After the movie the network urged it’s viewers to log on to the MTV website and voice out their concerns. MTV also sacrificed seventeen hours of advertising space and aired a special case-by-case segment that listed the names of victims of Hate Crimes (Bauder, n-page).

A second scenario occurred at a farmhouse in rural Nebraska. Brandon Teena was shot and then stabbed to death by two men. This tragic event occurred in December of 1993. Brandon Teena was a female, who lived her life as a man (www.gender.org). This story influenced the 1999 movie Boys Don’t Cry. It won numerous awards including a best actress Oscar® for Hillary Swank who played the role of Brandon Teena, and went on to gross more than 11 million dollar in the United States alone (www.imdb.com).

A last incident happened in West Virginia, when David Parker and Jared Wilson confessed to killing Arthur Warren Jr., a man who had slight mental and physical disabilities. They kicked Warren with steel toe boots, and after nearly killing him “finished” the job by running him over with a truck. The trial is still on going (Quittner, n-page).

These stories, which were based on sexual orientation, gender, and disability, are just three of the many hundreds of hate crimes that go on every year. Hate Crimes by definition are when the perpetrator of the crime intentionally selects the victim because of who the victim is (www.unitedagainsthate.org). These selections can be based on any difference that the perpetrator sees as that not part of the “norm” (Minnow, 522). Religion, race, gender, social status, and sexual orientation are just some of the examples of what is considered to be the opposite of the “[S]tatus of the free, white citizen, [that] stands as the measure for non-discrimination”(542). Because of these forms of discrimination, legislators have created the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

The Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) is an ongoing legislative bill that is zealously debated and contested by legislators, activists, and advocates alike. Its main points are to prosecute hate crimes based on gender, sexual orientation, and disability, the same way that crimes based on race, religion, ethnicity are seen and handled. Secondly the Act includes the federal government in matters involving hate crimes as an investigator force among other things (Pontemayor, n-page). The current hate crime law only protects crimes based on race, national origin, and religion, and doesn’t include the Federal government stepping in. So far this neutral stance by the government seems to create more problems than solutions.

Martha Minow’s essay entitled, The Dilemma of Difference, talks about the idea of government neutrality as the solution- it promotes equality but at the same time may “freeze in place past consequences of differences”(Minnow 520). The question then becomes if whether or not the government can truly be neutral in the case of hate crimes.

The dilemma of difference is a phrase that Minow coined to describe “The stigma of difference [that] maybe recreated by ignoring or focusing on [the difference] (520). One would see that the dilemma of difference in the argument of whether hate crimes take away from the constitutional guarantee of one’s freedom of speech. Minow’s idea of “[T]he dilemma of difference- [which is] sometimes treated as a constitutional question of equal protection, due process, or religious freedom [or] sometimes treated as a problem of statutory interpretation of civil rights . . . produces heated legal controversies that reverberate beyond courtrooms and legislatures” best suits and supports the claim that the HCPA is not going to change people’s attitudes, it is a much larger entity than a legal battle (521). “Should the government recognize the difference of one’s own individuality (e.g. sexual preference, religion) in the prosecution and investigation of a crime?” and “Is a person’s right of free speech invalidated by judging a crime as a hate crime?” These are the questions that are being contemplated upon.

The struggles of past minority groups over the last century has been met with positive results. Homosexuals for example people labeled as having a mental disease. Now they have integrated into mainstream society as functioning members. Once only seen to be stereotypically hairdressers and choreographers, many gays and lesbians have emerged to take on professions that are respected and earn the same wages as a straight person. A similar situation is seen in the milestones made in women’s rights as well as the rights of the disabled. However not all people share this view; there are still many groups out there, mainly religious groups that see homosexuality as something that is chosen consciously and is dirty, women should be domestic, and the disabled should be separated from mainstream society. These varying viewpoints give birth to the question of whether or not a Hate Crime Law is needed.

According to the Religious Tolerance Group (RTG), such a law is not needed (Johnson, n-page). Since the organization is composed of what society deems the majority, they feel that their beliefs are what should be considered the “norm.” According to Johnson, he believes that “[Since] the members [of the RTG] have probably never have been the minority in their life, there is no reason that the legislation is needed”(Johnson, n-page). This idea supports Minow’s idea of the dilemma of difference in the sense that one group chooses not to recognize a group that they deem inferior, they are well intentioned yet because they ignore differences, they reproduce them (Minow, 526).

Another argument that is presented in Johnson’s paper is that “You can’t hang a man twice, once for the crime, and then again for the motive” (Charen qtd. in Johnson). By recognizing the HCPA, courts would have to look at other factors in a crime, and by doing so, may deter from one’s right to due process of law. In a scenario that involved the raping and beating of a white investment banker by four black youths, hate crime was not in the equation. However when Matthew Shepard a gay student was beaten, it became front-page material (Johnson, n-page). Must the victim be of minority status to receive recognition?

In Johnson’s paper he goes on to say that by furthering legislation on the HCPA, it infringes on a person’s constitutional right of free speech and due process of law. Just because someone doesn’t hold a particular view like the recognition of someone being gay, or choosing to be a woman, or being disabled, this Act automatically punishes the person for holding an unpopular view. Society in turn practices reverse discrimination on the person who holds the belief and deems the person as being someone who is “narrow-minded” or “cruel.” They are punished for holding a belief that they may have raised with or been exposed to their whole lives. They are the objects of oppression, because they choose to exercise their freedom of speech. The ACLU is an organization that holds such beliefs.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), supports the passing of the HCPA, but disagrees in the way it is worded (Wang, n-page). They feel that it could “potentially violate the Freedom of Speech” So they devised a solution, by adding a section that explained and established that a defendant’s abstract beliefs and membership in an organization shouldn’t be used as evidence (www.aclu.org). Like what was discussed earlier a person shouldn’t be given a trial just because he or she holds a particular view or is a member of an organization that advocates these views.

Supporting the HCPA is the United Against Hate Campaign. This organization feels that the value of all people should be recognized (Pontemayor, n-page). In fact the current state of the HCPA isn’t enough for the and they want it worded so that it includes protection of a person’s gender, sexual orientation, and disability. The United Against Hate campaign is made of numerous minority organizations, whose membership is constantly growing. Supported by passionate groups like the Matthew Shepard foundation, the coalition Jewish Women, and even the NAACP, UAH is something that stands for a view that many encourage.

Could the passing of the HCPA possibly change people’s minds and encourage unity? Look into what the Supreme Court decided in the case of Plessy v Ferguson, “Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation. If the civil and political rights . . . [of both groups] be equal one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically . . . the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane”(Plessy, 551). If there is a part of society that the majority labels as inferior and in this case homosexuals, women, blacks, etc, there can never be true equality. Legislation will not change the way groups see each other.

In Joseph Heller’s book Catch 22, a man named Yosarian is trying to escape World War II by acting crazy and in doing so proves that he isn’t mentally stable to go on fighting. But by doing this, he is acting “normal” because the average person would want to leave the horrors of war. There isn’t a clear solution, hence the title Catch 22. Just like Yosarian, society experiences a dilemna- a struggle to see a crime as one based on hate or not. There is a side that seems to be logical and correct, but underneath it all and in between the lines a whole new problem surfaces. For example as mentioned earlier MTV launched the Fight for your rights: take a stand against discrimination campaign, yet the network plays videos by Eminem whose songs openly insult gays and women implicitly. The media chooses what the public believes and therefore shapes the public opinion. By manipulating the heartstrings and judgments of the average person, the media chooses what to publish or play, and by doing so distorts the issue that should be the real focus. The HCPA needs to be passed and made into law. Do not let the deaths of Matthew Shepard, Brandon Teena, and Arthur Warren merely be news stories and movies. Let it mean something. Fight for the passing of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Sources Cited

United against Hate. © 16 January 2001< http://www.civilrights.org/united/main.cfm>

Plessy v Ferguson, court case handout