COLUMN: Hate crime laws raise throubling questions

From Mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99 From Mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99Imagine, as difficult and horrific as it may be, that you are James Byrd Jr., the black Texan chained behind a pickup truck last June and dragged for miles along a bumpy dirt road until his arms, legs and head tore off. Or that you are Robert Drake, the gay alumni advisor to Penn's Sigma Nu fraternity who was viciously beaten unconscious in late January and remained in critical condition on a respirator last week. All three victims suffered at the hands of prejudiced individuals who seemingly had no motive beyond their hatred for a certain trait in their victim. For Byrd, it was the color of his skin; for Shepard and Drake, it was their sexual orientation. Whether such crimes are legally labeled as "hate" crimes, they are an egregious affront to the progress this nation has made since its days of slavery and subjugation and to the very heart and soul of every decent human being. In short, they are sickening. Crimes like these are not a gay issue or a black issue. They are a human issue. Knowing that Shepard was tethered to a fence for up to 18 hours in such a condition that those who first found him thought he was a scarecrow should prompt extreme anger in anyone, gay or straight. Knowing that Byrd was alive for much of the time he was dragged behind that pickup truck should cause anyone's blood to boil, black or white. Indeed, crimes like these should dishearten all humans. But because such crimes are targeted at people for specific reasons -- race, sexual orientation, religion and so forth -- they provoke much greater outrage. Following the death of Shepard, President Clinton and Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer publicly denounced the brutality and vigils were held at college campuses nationwide, including Penn. Similar condemnation has poured out in the wake of the Jasper murder, and a national push for harsher hate crime legislation is now under way. In 1997, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 8,049 hate crimes were reported. Of those, 4,710 were reported to be the result of racial prejudice, 1,385 of religion, 1,102 of sexual orientation, 836 of ethnic or national origin, 12 of disability and four of multiple prejudices. To prosecute such crimes, most states now have hate crime laws on the books and existing federal law allows for the prosecution of crimes motivated by reasons of race, religion and national origin. The Clinton administration would like to see such laws expanded to include sexual orientation and other categories. But as the White House pushes its agenda, debate has raged over the necessity of hate crime legislation. While such legislation has certain benefits, skeptics of hate crime bills -- which typically call for harsher sentences for crimes committed against targeted groups -- have raised valid points to consider. Why, for instance, should the murder of a black man carry a more severe punishment than the murder of a white man? Does that suggest that the black man is more valuable than the white man? If so, then what has the law accomplished: The criminal thinks white men are better than black men. The law thinks black men are better than white men. Both end up flaunting the Declaration of Independence, which calls all Americans equal. Yet proponents of these laws assert that they deter hate crimes and that such crimes are deserving of harsher punishment because they cause greater damage. At the moment, no evidence exists that hate crime laws prevent criminals from attacking those they despise. Of course, if it turns out that hate crime laws have no deterrent value, then they should be taken off the books. But what if they do? For many, that will seem the ultimate argument for keeping such laws. But why not then keep them on the books for all types of murder? After all, they seem to make people think twice about killing others. And that is the crux of the issue, because society has decided that it is impractical to punish all murderers that harshly. And so, on some level, certain types of murders are deemed "worse," certain types of victims more worthy of protection. Such questions need to be seriously considered before hate-crime-legislation mania sweeps the land. In the meantime, the nation can be assured that criminals like Shepard's killers will be prosecuted under the fullest extent of existing laws.