INCONSISTENCIES between our country’s stated beliefs and legal realities threaten to trivialize the moral values that define advanced societies. In no arena is that kind of discrepancy more damaging than the issue of hate crimes legislation, which translates moral outrage into inappropriate laws that give little weight to the values most important to a free society.
Hate crimes are defined by the perpetrator’s bias against a certain group of people. Disapproval of a victim’s race, religion or sexual orientation leads most frequently to hate crimes, which are typically more violent than other crimes and done to send a message to other people of the same demographic group as the victim. Current federal hate crimes legislation, stimulated by the 1998 murder of homosexual college student Matthew Shepard, permits the levying of additional punishments for crimes committed on the basis of race, color, religion or nationality. Ironically, given the catalyst for the laws, sexual orientation has not yet been included in hate crimes legislation. Meanwhile, the FBI reported late last year that hate crimes increased nearly 8 percent from 2005 to 2006, underscoring the importance of having appropriate punishments for offenders.
Despite the superficial appeal of the laws, one cannot reconcile hate crimes legislation, which indirectly prescribes what is proper in matters of opinion, with our country’s underlying values. Enacting a specific penalty for having a certain belief is equivalent to dictating correct speech. Punishing two otherwise similar crimes differently because of the offenders’ biases leaves one being punished for the ideas in his head. The startling implication of such an action is that some beliefs are universally correct and some universally wrong — and that everyone should possess the former or face consequences. Leveling additional punishments for crimes because of the opinions of the offender is just as egregious as government sponsorship of certain beliefs over others.
The motivation behind a criminal action may indeed impact the punishment (or even the determination of guilt), but such motivations are not equivalent to the kinds of internal thoughts that lead to hate crimes. Legal factors like self-defense and premeditation are different from hatred of a certain group of people. Of course, hate crimes are often committed out of premeditation, but the punishment for those actions should nevertheless take into account only the premeditation and not the offender’s belief towards the victim.
The liberties of an open society must protect even the most hostile thoughts, for the right to think freely cannot be abridged just because an individual’s beliefs seem, to the greater public, reprehensible or vile. The Supreme Court, in the 1943 case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, declared, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official ... can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion ... If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.”
And if the right to think freely is bedrock, then acting on a certain belief — even if the action itself is not permissible in the community and affords an appropriate punishment — must be protected to some extent. The way this must be done is to ensure that penalties for proportional criminal actions are not influenced by the opinions that provoked them. To do otherwise not only violates the equal protection rights of the offender, but also renders almost meaningless the protections of thought that underlie the American system of government and law.
Freedom of religion, speech and expression are sacrosanct within our society so that people are permitted to possess any belief without fear of punishment. Some religious practices have been denied if they conflicted with state interests, but there is no precedent for impinging upon one’s thoughts. Yet that’s precisely what hate crimes legislation does; it enacts a specific punishment for the content of one’s thoughts. Our society cannot merely support freedom of thought when it is convenient; the principle must apply even to those with socially unacceptable convictions. Acting out those kinds of ideas naturally confers upon the offender an appropriate punishment — but his right to his thoughts, to the sanctity of his mind, must remain inviolable.
Grant Johnson is a Cavalier Daily Viewpoint Writer.
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