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Originally Posted by Samcol
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Originally Posted by Willravel
Do you know what hate crime is? It's a crime committed against a person or persons motivated by bigotry. For example, a man lynches another man because he's black. Stopping this is Orwellian? Have you even read 1984?
We have first and second degree murder. That's a case where one murder is more illegal than another. Maybe you'd like to clump involuntary manslaughter with murder one, that way when someone gets in a sober car accident and accidentally kills a passenger, they can get the electric chair? Saying 'murder is murder' is like saying being able to fly like superman is the same as taking a plane (sorry, I'm watching Heroes). There are murders that are worse, and we already have legislation to protect people from being murdered because of things like race, sex, and creed. The idea that this guy voted against adding homosexuality to the list was motivated because he doesn't agree with hate crime laws doesn't make any sense.
Persecuting hate criminals is perfectly fair. If you break the law, you must pay for your mistake.
The road to tyranny is subjugation. It's allowing loud voices to control what we think and do, like convincing us that homosexuals are some sort of threat to us.
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Sorry Will, you are so far off imo. Don't stop the lynching because he's black. Stop it because they are KILLING A PERSON unjustly. God won't judge me if I kill a black man, or a white man, or a brown man, he will judge me for killing a man period. |
I don't think this about God. It's probably more about deterrence. The idea would be to regulate societal development by making it clear that bigotry is looked down upon legally. I think that we can all agree that the followin examples of murder are different:
1) A man comes home to find his beloved wife of 12 years in bed with his best friend. He flies into a fit of rage and stabs his friend in the arm. He hits the corroded artery and the man bleeds to death.
2) A man sees a flamboyant (a nice way to say flaming) homosexual leave a bar and decides that, because the Bible says God hates queers, he's going to bash his head in with a baseball bad from the back of his Ford truck.
This isn't just about protecting a minority, which is important, but it's also about motive. In our criminal justice system, we take motive into account when deciding the severity of a crime. If a man steals because his family is starving, he's probably more likely to get a reduces sentence than a guy who stole despite having plenty of money (case in point: Wynonna).
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Originally Posted by Samcol
I support candidates on the issue not on what party they voted for or why they voted against something. Government not recognizing 'gay' marriage is the 'freedom' choice ( or the 'not recognizing an establishment of religion choice'). Just like it would be if they didn't recognize heterosexual marriage. There job is to enforce contracts not recognize religious ceremonies.
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Voting records don't lie. Candidates do. Remember when Bush said he'd never invade another country for their resources? Yeesh.
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Originally Posted by Samcol
Government's job is not to protect the right of different classes, or races, or groups of people, it's job is to protect the right of every "INDIVIDUAL" EQUALLY.
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I think a child rapist should get more time than an adult rapist.
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Originally Posted by FoolThemAll
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Originally Posted by Willravel
- Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
- Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
- Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
- Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)
That is a consistent prejudice against homosexuals. Every time an issue of homosexuality has come up, he's voted against homosexuality. A prejudice against a particular group, race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation is called bigotry. What do we call someone who is a bigot against homosexuals? Homophobe.
I rest my case.
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Objection, your Honor. Prosecution misses the point, assumes too much from facts in evidence.
If Thompson is against hate crime legislation in general, then those first two votes are not compelling evidence of homophobia. |
I don't see any evidence that suggests he's against all hate crime legislation.
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Originally Posted by FoolThemAll
If Thompson is against regulating the hiring practices of private businesses in general, then that last vote is not compelling evidence of homophobia.
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Again, I don't see any evidence of that. Not only that, but these two together are a mighty coincidence. Add on the same sex marriage thing and it's almost certain.
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Originally Posted by FoolThemAll
That third vote comes close. It's actually fairly compelling. But it's not an open and shut case, and you should have called more witnesses. There are reasons other than bigotry to welcome gay marriage bans - the belief that gay marriage will further destabilize the institution (as the Scandinavian study might superficially appear to demonstrate) or the dictionary argument ("It's just not marriage, it's something else"), coupled with some lack of serious thought on the matter. Put simply, laziness is an equally good explanation for some opposition. It's not a greatly important issue, after all, next to stuff like the war, fiscal policy, immigration... pretty much every other major issue.
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It's often a major issue when you're a Republican. Again, we're talking about multiple votes creating a precedence. He clearly has a precedence for voting against homosexuals, and it would have to be for very coincidental and varying reasons for it not to be a bias.
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Originally Posted by FoolThemAll
I've had friends who opposed gay marriage, yet never withheld the slightest bit of kindness or respect for their gay friends. Call them bigots, and the word 'bigot' loses all meaning. Or at least your usage does.
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I would argue that being against gay marriage is a withholding of a right, not just kindness or respect...but I don't know your friends.
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Originally Posted by Samcol
Had Hitler slaughtered 6 million Asians, or Americans, or Africans, or South Americans, or Australians made any difference? Should his sentence of made him anymore hanged or shot to death? It is GENOCIDE. Just like murder is murder. Black or white, what's the difference we are all people right?
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The definition of genocide is "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group". That's killing out of bigotry, and is thus a hate crime.
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Originally Posted by Samcol
What if the slave was from Asia, or the girl forced into prostitution was from Mexico? Do they deserve less justice?
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Less justice? We're not talking about letting non-hate crime offenders walk. We're talking about the beefing up of the particularly bad crimes.
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Originally Posted by Samcol
Why should a class get a preferential victim status? You still haven't really explained that.
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It's not just a class. It's gender, race, age, creed, orientation, etc.
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Originally Posted by Samcol
And why shouldn't individuals be equal under the law?
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We're talking about the criminal's intent more than the victim.