Conservative Tendencies
by Michael K. Bassham
If Only I had Some Protection
Only June 10, 2006, a group of six or seven males attacked and brutally beat gay performance artist Kevin Aviance. During the beating, they yelled, “Kill the faggot” and other epithets. Mr. Aviance suffered a broken jaw which had to be wired shut following surgery. He had been scheduled to perform on June 25th at New York City’s Pride festival. Mr. Aviance recorded and performed the dance hit “Give it Up.”
Four males, aged 16 to 20 have been arrested and charged with hate crimes as a result of the beating. If convicted of hate crimes, each of these four will be given enhanced sentences under the New York Hate Crimes Act of 2000.
Less than a week later, Angela Clemente was found badly beaten on a Brooklyn street. Ms Clemente was a private investigator looking into a possible link between an indicted former FBI agent and the 1992 murder of two alleged mobsters on Long Island. She was found only a few hours after a scheduled meeting with an informant, police said. Ms. Clemente is credited by authorities with playing a pivotal role in securing the indictment of a former FBI agent accused of passing information to mobsters that led to the murder of two men.
If caught, Ms. Clemente’s attackers are not likely to be charged with a hate crime because their crime was not related to Ms. Clemente’s “race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation.” She was attacked for fighting back against corruption.
Two attacks, two people badly injured, yet their attackers face different punishments because their victims came from different classes of people. That is wrong and should be abhorred by anyone who values equal justice under the law. Moreover, any group of people wanting equality should refuse to allow themselves to be placed in the special victims’ class.
If I get beaten up because I am a faggot or if I am beaten up because someone wants my wallet, the punishment should be the same. Assault and battery is already a crime. Enhanced punishments for crimes against certain groups cheapen the stand against crime for all. Moreover, hate crimes legislation provides no additional protection to the special victim classes.
The only purpose for hate crimes laws is to make the non-victims feel good after the fact that they got tough on “those bastards that did this.”
Does anyone believe that even one time that a drunken, rampaging husband has stayed his hand just as he is about to strike his terrified wife and thought, “What am I doing? Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-101(b)(2) provides for an enhanced punishment for assaults where the victim fits within the definition of Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-3-601(8) meaning that the victim is related to me by blood or marriage. I had better stop what I am doing right now!”?
Of course not. General criminal laws provide some degree of deterrence. But, to suggest that the creeps who do such things are going to be aware of the enhanced punishment and would find that factor to be the tipping point that dissuades them from attacking is just fantasy.
In an attempt to accomplish a counter-productive goal, many of the prominent GLBT groups, including, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), dilute the push for equal rights by attempting to pass these ineffective laws.
Oddly, these groups make arguments like the one found on the NGLTF website (www.thetaskforce.org) that hate crimes tear “at the fabric of our society by sending a message to entire groups of people: You do not have the right to exist free of fear and violence, simply because of who you are.” Two paragraphs later NGLTF argues that “Hate crimes laws punish actions, not speech or thought.” Which is it? Are these laws aimed at the violence or the message? If it is the message, then speech and thought are exactly what the laws are aimed at punishing.
Even some otherwise principled conservatives have thrown their support behind this type of legislation. The argument they usually make is that we should not have any hate crimes laws, but since we do, gays should be included. In other words, “Pick me! Pick me! I want to be a special victim too!” Hate crimes laws are bad. Taking something bad and making it bigger does not make it better. It makes it worse.
Hate crimes laws do nothing to make us safer. By pushing for their enactment, the GLBT community refutes its own position that all we want is equal rights, not special rights. We would all be much better served by focusing on true issues of equality. Since it is the person we want to have a relationship with that distinguishes our identity, we should work to establish the equality of our relationships. While other issues also deserve our attention, hate crimes legislation is not one of them.
