Are There Any "Love" Crimes?

Last week The House of Representatives passed a revised hate crime bill. The changes include adding sexual preference and gender to race, religion, color, and national origin to those attacks labeled as hate crimes. President Bush has already said he will veto the bill and church leaders are up in arms because they are concerned it will infringe on their first amendment rights.

Church leaders should stop worrying. There is nothing in the bill that would keep them from preaching intolerance, but if they're that worried, they should make sure to remind their audiences that speech is free, beating people up is not. There are two things, though, that concern me about the bill.

The first thing that bothers me is that this law will punish certain people more harshly than others, based on motive and victim. Why should someone who attacks a someone out of ignorance be punished more than someone who attacks out of greed? I want someone to know that if they assault me to take my wallet, they're going to face the full force of the law. Under the hate crime bill, that's not the case. That attacker is going to get a more lenient sentence than the one who assaulted a homosexual, Hispanic, Asian, or any other minority. They should ALL face the full force of the law, not just some of them.

The other thing that concerns me is on more of a practical level. This bill gives the federal authorities the right to run roughshod over the local police. I think if authorities at the federal level need to get involved, it should only be at the request of the local authorities. They may feel they need assistance. If they don't, all you're going to get is a lot of jurisdictional fighting, and very little justice.