Thanks again to Michael for pointing out a current controversy, this one over the hate crimes legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives this past week.
I'll wait til later to outline the arguments that are made regarding its constitutional status (which focus primarily on whether it violates First Amendment speech and free exercise rights as well as the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment), but opencongress.org has text of the bill so we can at least look at what we are judging:
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 -
Authorizes the Attorney General to provide technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or other assistance in the criminal investigation or prosecution of any crime that:
(1) constitutes a crime of violence under federal law or a felony under state, local, or Indian tribal law; and
(2) is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim, or is a violation of the state, local, or tribal hate crime laws.
Directs the Attorney General to give priority for assistance to crimes committed by offenders who have committed crimes in more than one state and to rural jurisdictions that have difficulty covering the extraordinary investigation or prosecution expenses.
Authorizes the Attorney General to award grants to assist state, local, and Indian law enforcement agencies with such extraordinary expenses.
Directs the Office of Justice Programs to:
(1) work closely with funded jurisdictions to ensure that the concerns and needs of all affected parties are addressed; and
(2) award grants to state and local programs designed to combat hate crimes committed by juveniles. Amends the federal criminal code to prohibit willfully causing bodily injury to any person because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of such person.
Amends the Hate Crimes Statistics Act to expand data collection and reporting requirements under such Act to include:
(1) crimes manifesting prejudice based on gender and gender identity; and
(2) hate crimes committed by and against juveniles. Declares that nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit the exercise of constitutionally-protected free speech.
Hate crimes laws are argued by supporters to be necessary in order to ensure that crimes that are historically not prosecuted by state and/or local officials (like lynching back in the bad old days) are prosecutable at a higher level less prone to local and state prejudice. The question is whether they go beyond simple punishment of acts and punish thoughts instead, which would be found unconstitutional (....probably, but read up on the Supreme Court's approval of a law punishing pandering) and whether the assumptions that the law is based on (that these criminal acts will not be prosecuted at lower levels) is no longer relevant and that this law recognizes a special class of people who will be protected at a higher level than others. Religious groups seem to have picked up on the fact that the last part of the law states that the law should not be construed to prohibit speech, but says nothing about free exercise of religious belief.
This is a great mental workout. I'll dig up some useful comments on this subject and post them soon.
