 "Photo: Evan Andrews")
The Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Act, named after a college student who was brutally beaten and killed in 1998 because of his sexual orientation, has finally passed Congress. This protection has been a long time coming, as proponents have been trying to add sexual orientation to the original hate crimes act passed after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, which already included race, color, religion and national origin. For 10 years the bill has been stymied and filibustered by Christians, the people specifically called to stand up for the abused and marginalized members of society.
Barring total bottom-feeders like Fred Phelps, I am going to assume most of the Christians opposing the bill weren't doing it in the hopes that they could continue to indiscriminately beat up gay people. Opponents standing on slightly more legitimate grounds have two points. For one, they feel that the whole category of specially designated Hate Crimes is unnecessary because people don't commit crimes against people they like, so it serves only to afford certain groups' special protection. Secondly, they're afraid that the legislation will be misused to prosecute Christians who speak their minds and denounce homosexuality as a sin.
It's true in some ways all crimes are hate crimes, but the difference is to what extent the hate is personal or global. An ordinary crime would be violence against a cheating spouse or against someone in order to take their car or money. These are crimes that have individual motives, specific to the victim. A Hate Crime is violence motivated by the hatred of an entire social group. A perpetrator does not need to know more about a person than they're gay (or black, or foreign or whatever it is) in order to hate them and, in their own mind, justify being violent toward them.
In this way Hate Crimes are fundamentally different than crimes against individuals motivated by jealousy or anger. It is important to pay special attention to this kind of crime because it is a symptom of pervasive social disease, the kind that fosters abuse on a massive scale, or even genocide. As Americans, we cannot allow that kind of moral decay to take hold in our country. Christians should be wholly in favor of the laws that protect minorities, or for that matter, any law that condemns violence.
As for the worry the law will be abused to prosecute those who speak out against homosexuality; this is a fine line we have always, and will always have to walk with the justice system. There is nothing in this bill that pertains to speech, it only addresses violent actions. That's no guarantee that somewhere, someday a protestor or a preacher with a particularly venomous sign or scathing message might not be arrested, but we have to trust in our justice system to free them if no crime has been committed. For my part, I think spreading hatred should never be on the agenda for Christians and should be condemned from within the church, even if it is legal.
So for now a victory against bigotry has been won, against the best efforts of some Christians instead of with their support. Christians need to reexamine their personal stance on civil rights issues, and then take a look at who they're standing beside. Leaders of the church who urge congressmen to vote against measures like this because they fear the humanization and the protection of homosexuals have no place in the clergy. By continuing to support their organizations, to patronize their churches and generally to listen to their crap, we support them and allow the kind of hatred that killed Matthew Sheppard to survive within our country.
Kat Drinkwater is a senior university psychology and neuroscience major.
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