Soo Yang

Matthew Shepard was an ordinary college student from a small town in Wyoming. He had a loving family, supportive friends and a genuine passion for political science. Unlike others who chose the easy path, he came out of the closet at the tender age of 18. At that time, there was no Ellen Degeneres or Brokeback Mountain. In fact, it was ten years before the Supreme Court actually decriminalized homosexuality. His mind was probably desensitized to words like “faggot” and his resolve somehow strengthened by all the adversity he faced in his brief time in this world.

On October 6, 1998, at the age of 21, he was attacked and later killed because he was gay. After robbing Shepard, his attackers tied him on a fence in a deserted ranch. They proceeded to torture, taunt, and beat him, leaving him unconscious and unrecognizable. A day later, a cyclist noticed something that looked like a scarecrow with a red-painted face hanging on a ranch fence. After closer observation, he realized it was a person, not just a bundle of sticks. According to the cyclist, the only areas on Shepard’s face that were not covered in blood were those where his tears had washed the bloodstains away.

After his tragic death, his mother, Judy Shepard, became the main advocate for a bill that would make attack based on sexual orientation a hate crime at the federal level. She faced many challenges including a cowardly accusation from an ill-informed Congressman who called the murder a hoax. Last Wednesday, her work and that of others came to fruition as President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. Most prominently, this new legislation finally expands existing federal hate crime protections to outlaw attacks based on perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. Although a few liberal states have taken up this issue independently, this new national policy has the strongest and the most inclusive language for a hate crime bill.

As a gay American, I have more than just emotions and feelings when looking back at this extended story of tragedy and hope. It makes me ask why it took 11 years after Shepard’s death for this country to see anti-gay attacks as a hate crime. What’s worse is that violence based on sexual orientation makes up a significant portion of hate crimes in this country. According to FBI data collected since 1991, 14% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual orientation compared to 17% that were of religious bias and 14% of ethnicity bias. Last year alone, there were about 250 attacks of sexual orientation bias that resulted in either death or serious injuries.

In retrospect, the passage of this bill represents the first major civil rights legislation for those of LGBT community and Americans who still believe in equality. Surely, this is a moment to celebrate but also one to reflect. In short, there is no excuse for why it took so long for our country to pass this bill. At this rate, other major civil rights policies will be delayed unnecessarily, and basic rights will be denied to millions of Americans for no good reason. We understand that progress can be slow. We realize that bureaucratic processes, democratic mechanisms, and social changes all take time. But, we also know that discrimination cannot be part of our political system forever when our own country was founded under the principle that all men are created equal. The movement towards full freedom in this country is timeless and enduring. Equality cannot wait. We cannot wait.

—Soo Yang is a senior in the College of Arts and Science. He can be reached at soo.r.yang@vanderbilt.edu.

Submitted by Amwidkle on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 15:13.

My point isn't so much that a

My point isn't so much that a terrorist plot is or isn't a thought crime, but that a careful consideration of thought and motive is a key part of the legal process. You can't just throw out these concerns because a criminal's thoughts are difficult to determine. It's the difference between premeditated murder and involuntary manslaughter, which can have quite different sentences. In other words motive WAS INDEED "an end crime in itself" before this legislation (in the sense we are using it, in determining sentencing after the fact - which isn't precisely the same as saying motive is "an end crime in itself", but what we choose to call it isn't as important as agreeing that we're talking about the same thing). A random act of violence is tragic, because it is a result of anonymous forces out of our control, but a hate crime is even more tragic, because it is the result of a deliberate act of the human mind which could be prevented. When a hate crime is committed, the target isn't just the victim, it's the victim's whole group. It's a clear statement that "their kind isn't welcome here," that anyone of the victim's identity could be deliberately targeted. Even the entire nation is harmed; hate crimes attack the American ideal of pluralism and the freedoms of thought and expression. The passage of the Sheperd and Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act WILL make those who are plotting violence against gays think twice, since it shows that Washington is not on their side, and those who continue to commit these atrocities WILL be punished at a level more appropriate to the gravity of their crime. It would be comforting to believe that all criminals are equally benign and should be treated equally under the law. But some crimes and criminals really are more dangerous to society, and to the freedoms you and I cherish. Those who intentionally seek to make a political statement through violence should not be protected the same way an insane or accidental criminal would be. Freedom of speech does not extend to violent speech, and justice cannot turn a blind eye to heinous acts of hatred. At any rate, if the new law criminalized just the thoughts rather than the thought-action paradigm, then we really WOULD be talking about arresting people simply for hating gays and not acting on those thoughts.

Submitted by Mike Warren on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 12:41.

Amwidkle

The crime, then, is the plot, the conspiracy, what have you. Your thought experiment is a red herring. I don't think we're talking about arresting people simply for hating gays and not acting on those thoughts. So the situations aren't even parallel.

Submitted by Amwidkle on Fri, 10/30/2009 - 23:22.

For the sake of argument

Mike - A terrorist plots to assasinate the president, but is caught before any harm comes to pass. Is this a thought crime or no?

Submitted by Mike Warren on Fri, 10/30/2009 - 21:20.

Rebuttal

Not sure your argument cuts it. When you consider it closely, the law in fact DOES criminalize thought; that's the entire basis of it. If the attackers under the law were just beating up random people, without regard for some classifying feature, they'd be prosecuted for the assault, plain and simple. All this law does is add a charge based on what an attacker THINKS. We can use motive, for instance, to determine who, and how and why someone committed a crime, but until legislation like this, motive wasn't an end crime in itself. From what I can infer from your reply, you believe hate criminals deserve harsher penalties than your run-of-the-mill assaulter. We can assume, then that you (and other hate crime legislation supporters) have made the judgment that attacking someone for their sexual orientation is a worse offense than attacking someone because you got in an argument or attacking someone because they called you a name. Is that a proper use of judgment? In the end, both victims are left physically and emotionally damaged because the attackers violated our society's rules that you don't attack an innocent person. You say the whole gay community is hurt when someone attacks a gay person because they are gay. That's too exclusive. When anyone commits assault against anyone for any unlawful reason, it really hurts the entire law-abiding community. When you start criminalizing thought instead of just behavior, you venture into difficult territory where we've got to ascertain what people thought at the time of the crime. That's dangerous. But kudos for your consistency, and I'll give you that. If we're going to insist on having hate crimes legislation, we should include every discernible group possible. But we really could save ourselves a few trees and man-hours up on Capitol Hill and just agree that all criminals are equal before the law. I like that idea, someone should put that in the Constitution.

Submitted by Soo Yang on Fri, 10/30/2009 - 14:49.

Response.

Hey. Thanks for reading. Yes, the attackers did end up with maximum sentences because of the extreme nature of their crime. However, not all hate crimes involve death by torture. In fact, the vast majority of anti-gay attacks does not involve immediate murder. In these situations, the reasons for instituting an inclusive hate crime law become salient. For example, let's say an attacker beats up a gay student because of the victim's sexual orientation. This incident can be reported as a either misdemeanor or a hate crime, and the outcome and the severity of the sentence will depend on how the crime was reported or processed. In states that do not have hate crime bills protecting sexual orientation or identity, this becomes a serious problem.

Also, this law does not criminalize thought. The law criminalizes physical assault. In fact, the Phelps family can still think and express what they feel. As long as they don't physically attack someone for being gay, they are being lawful.

Again, a general hate crime bill is needed because these sorts of crimes are not simplistic, isolated incidents. These crimes are special acts of violence that terrorize an entire community, in addition to the immediate victim. Attacking someone for wanting his or her money is very much different than attacking someone for being who the person is. And, the punishment for these crimes must reflect the severity and the nature of the crimes. That's how our legal system is supposed to work.

So, we need hate crimes bill that is inclusive. If a Muslim man attacked for his choice of religion is a victim hate crime, then a gay student attacked for his immutable sexual orientation should be a victim hate crime. The least thing that the government can do is to make sure that we can become FREE from the fear of being attacked because we are black or white, disabled or fit, gay or straight, religious or not, etc.

Submitted by Mike Warren on Fri, 10/30/2009 - 13:22.

Freedom? Not quite

Sorry, but I'm not sure the passage of this bill is a victory for anyone, except those who want to criminalize thought. To borrow the argument from Colorado Patriot (http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/10/28/what-does-the-defense-authorization-bill-say-about-the-american-left/), doesn't the fact that the attackers of both of the namesakes of this bill are all serving out their sentences (both life and death sentences) prove that hate crimes legislation is pointless? The justice system worked. It already is unlawful to attack gay folks...and straight folks. It's unlawful to attack folks period. This new law won't change the fact that there are some Americans so twisted and evil that they would harm or kill other people because they are gay. It just criminalizes those thoughts. These are thoughts that I will denounce and abhor, but is it right for the government to dictate that these thoughts are unlawful? I say we prosecute to the fullest extent of the law the murder, raping, beating, or abuse of ANY innocent person. This legislation allows the government to arrogate the power to make a value judgment on an individual's own thoughts. I can't support that, even for the worthy (but empty) cause of stopping violence against others.

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