Hating-on the New Hate Crimes Bill
How can anyone have anything against hate crimes legislation? It provide strict punishment for a very harsh and simple-minded motivated crime. That’s easy. They have to get re-elected.
A hate crimes prevention bill received opposition from a U.S. representative because it would have a “chilling effect” on people who commit hate crimes, according to CrooksandLiars.com.
The law provides federal assistance for state and other entities to prosecute hate crimes. However, some House Republicans opposed the bill because of the threat they claim it puts on everything from freedom of speech to Constitutional law. At first, I thought they were going to claim it was a threat to heterosexual marriage.
Rep. Steven King offered the most amusing concern, as also noted by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He basically claimed that a person assaulting someone who may be gay or in a special sexual orientation minority could get prosecuted for a hate crime, even though he didn’t know the person he assaulted was in such a minority. I think I see a way out of this for the assaulter. See if you can spot it as well.