hate crime? or crime=hate?
Oct 23rd, 2008 by melinda
Tonight I was watching this show called Life on Mars. I’m not a crazy fan of that show or anything, but nothing else was on and the show has an interesting premise. Anyway my thought has very little to do with the show… the show just brought it to mind.
At one point, the show’s time-traveling character makes a comment to the effect of, “It’s looking more and more like a hate crime”. The 70s era chief of police says, “What, as opposed to an I really like you crime?”
He makes such a good point, I think. I mean… here’s the wikepedia definition of hate crime:
- Hate crimes (also known as bias motivated crimes) occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation.
But the thing about crime, particularly a crime against people, is… regardless of what “type” of crime it is, there’s always a motivation. And rarely is that motivation “because I liked him so much”. There’s always a reason why a person chooses to commit that crime, and often, that reason is quite hateful.
I’m not trying to discount “hate crimes” in any way. Crime is wrong, crime is always wrong, and crime always will be wrong. But I wonder if there is any reason that a “hate crime” (as defined by that wikipedia definition) should be considered worse than a “crime”.
