Debating the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act

What follows is a transcript of a debate on Facebook over the recent hate-crime legislation signed into law by President Obama. I’ve reduced the names to initials to protect identities (except for mine) and removed the formatting from Facebook, but I haven’t changed anything else.

Not only do I like this because it’s a relatively civil discussion, I also like how it shows that platforms like Facebook can be used for intelligent debates, not just crap like Farmville and personalized ads.

K’s status
@BarackObama Signed a bill today that protects citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love or how they pray: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/CloeAxelson/gGMyKL


N-
14th Amendment was not immediately available for comment.

DC-
Comment Above Seconded.


DM-
I’m not sure I understand what your two are complaining about—possible prevention of Matthew Shepard-like actions far outweighs any perceived (which is all they are at this point) attacks on equal protection. Besides, it merely provides added funding, leaving prosecution powers in state hands.


N-
That’s not true. The bill expands the *federal* hate crimes bill of 1969.

It also seems to be a fairly significant power-grab by the federal government in that it:
-removes the current prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally-protected activity, like voting or going to school
-gives federal authorities greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue

What constitutionally gives congress power to pass this kind of law? Similar hate crimes legislation was implemented and defended under the commerce clause, but Rehnquist shot down the commerce clause argument in 2000 in a 5-4.


DM-
I cannot believe that you’d be surprised by increased federal authority in a post-Reconstruction America. The extension of protection under the Shepard Act from a 40 year old measure was both natural and necessary. To argue otherwise is ignorant and necessitates a refresher course in violence in the United States.

N-
So were you lying about the bill not expanding federal authority, or was that just willful ignorance on your part?
Of course the gradual increase of federal authority is not surprising. I do not, however, think that congresses abuse of the commerce clause is a good thing. Even ignoring apparent 14th amendment violations, do you really think that the commerce clause should continue to be used in such a ‘fast and loose’ fashion?
Again, the Supreme Court has found legislation similar to this to be unconstitutional, so the constitutionality of this particular bill is still up in the air.

Really, what evidence is there that this bill is nothing more than an unconstitutional political move to satisfy special interest groups?


Frank-
I would hardly define the community protected by this bill as a special interest, N. It’s true that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people make up a minority of the population, but that’s a pretty flaky criterion for a group to meet to be considered a special interest. If we followed that logic, then the ease in which significant portions of the country could be marginalized by simply dismissing their cause as “a special interest” would be extremely distressing; far more distressing and dangerous than any perceived affront to a warped interpretation of an amendment specifically designed to protect the rights of groups who have historically faced higher-than-normal levels of persecution.


DM-
While it’s true that the government will now have the ability to look into cases of supposed hate crimes on their own accord, what I said was not false—the duty of pursuing hate crimes will remain predominantly in the hands of the states. Forty-five states already have hate crime regulations as it is. They can now, however, request federal funding for investigation.

I’m not sure why you think working to protect the rights of LGBTQ citizens is “political move to satisfy special interest groups.” The travesty of a murder such as is the case with Matthew Shepard is without question important enough to warrant usage of the commerce clause.

N-
Not trying to marginalize anyone here, but you have to realize that gays as an voting bloc (and a group with interests) were by and large feeling let-down with the administration and congress as they felt they were being ignored after actively mobilizing during the elections (i.e. obama not delivering on don’t ask don’t tell promises). So this seemed to me like a political play by congress to throw a bone to their gay constituents.

Everyone’s talking about prevention, but what will this really prevent? The murderers of Matthew Shepard are both in prison serving consecutive life terms - how would extra hate crime laws get more justice than that, or the threat of hate crime prosecution have prevented it? Is someone going to rethink cold-blooded murder just to avoid an extra charge? I understand the symbolic significance, but what about practically. Does this really “protect the rights of LGBTQ citizens”? Prior to this law, their protection under the law was the same as mine.

I mean, murder is murder, assault is assault, battery is battery. When you start bringing bias and motivations into consideration it starts to get a little iffy in my book. If one guy gets murdered out of jealousy and another because of a bias, why should one killer get more time than the other? I know the talking point is that it threatens a larger community, but I’m not sure that’s really justice. In these cases it seems like hate crime laws are going beyond the actual crime and examining the murderer’s reasons for killing.
It’s simply assumed that a bias motivated crime is intended (or will result in) terror in the victims particular group community, but this doesn’t even have to be true for a hate crime to be prosecuted, only the bias has to be established.


Frank-
Distinctions between hate crime and regular crimes:

It’s easy to claim that all crime is hate crime. After all, who ever heard of robbing and beating someone out of love? However, when such violent acts are motivated by racist, sexist or homophobic sentiments, they do far more damage than is immediately apparent. It’s true that a single murder motivated by greed and a murder motivated by hate (of one of the aforementioned varieties) may both produce a single body, but hate-fueled violence tends to feed upon itself in a way that muggings and robberies do not, increasing the likelihood of similar events in the future.

Expansion of federal power:

As D pointed out, the onus of enforcing this legislation will fall squarely on the shoulders of the states. Sections 4 and 5 detail the grant program, which grants additional funds to state, local and tribal authorities to persecute these crimes and is the great majority of the power behind this bill. Section 6 provides for the utilization of additional personnel, but again, only to assist the lower levels of law enforcement.

Your objection to the overuse of the interstate commerce clause is nothing new, but this bill “abuses” it no more than most other Congressional initiatives (and I’d hardly consider protecting the life and liberty of a disenfranchised group to be abusive). We live in a country with a strong central government. It’s that way for a reason, as the alternative was shown as inferior in both the failure of the Articles of Confederation and the splintering of the country during the Civil War.

The fear of feds barging into private homes and carting off civilians for “hating fags” is patently ridiculous. This is the United States, and that sort of thing is unthinkable here, no matter what party is in charge.

Infringement upon Constitutional rights:

I’ll cite from the bill (available at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-909):

SEC. 10. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

For purposes of construing this Act and the amendments made by this Act the following shall apply:

(1) RELEVANT EVIDENCE- Courts may consider relevant evidence of speech, beliefs, or expressive conduct to the extent that such evidence is offered to prove an element of a charged offense or is otherwise admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Nothing in this Act is intended to affect the existing rules of evidence.

(2) VIOLENT ACTS- This Act applies to violent acts motivated by actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability of a victim.

(3) CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit any constitutionally protected speech, expressive conduct or activities (regardless of whether compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief), including the exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment and peaceful picketing or demonstration. The Constitution does not protect speech, conduct or activities consisting of planning for, conspiring to commit, or committing an act of violence.

(4) FREE EXPRESSION- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to allow prosecution based solely upon an individual’s expression of racial, religious, political, or other beliefs or solely upon an individual’s membership in a group advocating or espousing such beliefs.

Obviously, your fears of intrusion upon your Constitutional rights, however ill-founded, were expected and accounted for. The right to free speech (aside from inciting violence) is protected and the definition of hate crime is pretty clearly explained, with the third clause providing a concrete hold for lawyers to structure an argument around in a case where one felt their Constitutional rights were infringed upon.

Violation of the equal protection clause:

The idea of using this clause to condemn hate-crimes laws as unconstitutional is, frankly, pretty absurd. The laws provide the same protection to all people. It doesn’t say in any of the laws that you have to be a bisexual black woman to be protected. If you were attacked for being a straight white man, you’d enjoy that same protection. Nowhere does it say you have to be a certain race, gender or sexual orientation, just that you have to HAVE a race, gender or sexual orientation.

This bill doesn’t provide protection to certain groups, it provides protection to everyone. If it infringes upon anyone’s rights, then it would infringe upon those who commit crimes based on hate as opposed to those who commit crimes based on greed or other motivations, and they forfeit most of their rights the minute they harm another person.