Hate crime law no solution

Cluefon
    By Dan Dudis

One thing we know for sure: Matthew Shepard, a gay student student at the University of Wyoming, was robbed, beaten with a pistol until his skull was shattered, tied to a fence like a farm animal, and left there to freeze to death. Aside from the absolute brutality of this crime, what has commanded our attention is the fact that the two men charged with killing Shepard apparently did so at least in part because he was gay.

Shepard's killers sallied forth from their trailer parks and extinguished his life because he possessed that damnable "show-tune" gene. Or was it because he loved Streisand? Or Brad Pitt? Or perhaps Shepard's killers thought that he was an abomination before God and had to be sent the way of those citizens of long-ago Sodom and Gomorrah. Or maybe it was for all of these reasons and more.

There are many gay and lesbian rights activists who, after hearing news of Shepard's murder, seized upon it as an opportunity to push for federal hate crimes legislation. Such an act, if passed, would make crimes committed out of hate toward a particular minority group subject to more severe penalties.

Proponents of this legislation want people punished because of their motivations--in this case, their hatred toward a particular minority group. Our legal system has always operated on the assumption that motivation (excepting self-defense) is immaterial to the crime committed. Sure, motivation comes up at trials, but then it is only to establish guilt or innocence. The specific crime a person is charged with--and the sentence that crime carries--depends only on the nature of the crime itself and the degree of premeditation with which the crime was committed. To punish people additionally for their motivations is in effect punishing them for their thinking.

As much as we may despise the beliefs that helped lead to the killing of Matthew Shepard, it is for his murder that his killers must be punished, not for their vile bigotry. Hatred of gays and lesbians is clearly an ingrained part of this country's culture. A majority of Americans feel that homosexuality is a choice, is abnormal, and is a sin against God. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) likens it to kleptomania, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Ministers condemn homosexuals as evil, sick people. The ultimate culpability for Matthew Shepard's death lies not with his ignorant and pathetic killers, but with Lott, the Christian Coalition, and their friends in Washington. And with us.

Just as Trent Lott and Southern Baptist preachers from Virginia Beach to Amarillo, Tex. help to legitimize hatred of homosexuals in the small minds of people like Shepard's killers, so do we when we ignore or laugh tepidly at jokes against minorities.

My mother, a native New York liberal, used to walk my sister and me down the long dirt lane that led to our school bus stop. The bus driver lived a couple farms over from us, and she and my mom used to have neighborly chats as my sister and I got on the bus. As is characteristic of the rural south, my school district was about 50-50 black-white. My bus driver would unembarassedly talk to my mother about the "coloreds," using terms I can't repeat here, all the while assuming that my mother shared her sentiments. My mother never once said anything to indicate otherwise.

Here at Yale, bigotry against ethnic groups is far less tolerated, yet bigotry against homosexuals is more frequent than we might like to think. I can't count how many times acquaintances of mine have made anti-gay comments, and yet each time, I remained silent. My mother and I think alike; why rock the boat?

Tolerating bigotry is akin to lying. Both are the grease that keeps society running smoothly. The casualties of our happy society are people like Shepard. Every time we remain silent in the face of bigotry, we allow the haters to think that they have another ally. We embolden them to pursue their agenda of hatred. In a democratic society such as ours, hate can not--and should not--be made illegal, as the supporters of hate crimes legislation would suggest.

The only way to prevent more violence and more hate is to speak out against it and destroy it, not just try to ban it. Hatred of the kind that killed Matthew Shepard preys on those perceived as weak and isolated. It's time to stand up and show the haters that, though not a majority, the open-minded are a force to be reckoned with. We should be silent no more.

P.S.: I urge all of you to vote for Barbara Kennelley on Nov. 3.

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