Why You Should Hate the Hate Crimes Prevention Act

Star Parker rips into the hypocrisy and legal flaws of the new "Hate Crimes Prevention Act," which Barack Obama signed on October 28. Parker (photos) is a favorite columnist around here. She is the founder and president of CURE, the Coalition for Urban Renewal & Education, a 501c3 non-profit think tank that provides a national voice of reason on issues of race and poverty in the media, inner city neighborhoods, and public policy. Here is her Nov. 2 column, "New hate crimes law is a mistake." President Barack Obama has signed into law the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Actually, he signed into law the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act tacked onto which was the hate crimes legislation. Sen. Harry Reid, our brave Democratic majority leader, slipped the hate crimes bill into the defense authorization bill to avoid having to have our senators consider the controversial hate crimes bill on its own. It's for good reason that our Democratic legislators wanted to hide under a rock while passing this terrible piece of legislation. It may help them with the far left wing of their party. But weakening and damaging our country is not something to be proud of. And that is exactly what this new hate crime law does. The bill adds extra penalties to violent crimes when they are deemed motivated by gender, sexual orientation, or disabilities. It's the first major expansion of hate crimes legislation originally passed in 1968, targeted then to crimes aimed at race, color, religion, and national origin. After signing this new law, Obama celebrated it by saying that in this nation we should "embrace our differences." But law isn't about embracing our differences. It is about providing equal and non-arbitrary protection to all citizens. Equal protection for every individual American under the law is what the 14th Amendment to our Constitution, passed after the Civil War, guarantees. That this nation takes this guarantee seriously -- that there are no classes of individuals treated differently under the law -- has been a justifiable obsession of blacks. A society in which all life is not valued the same, where murder of one citizen is not the same as the murder of another citizen, is a horror that black Americans have known too well. So it is a particular irony that this major expansion of the politicization of our law has been signed by our first black president. What could it possibly mean that the penalty for the same act of violence -- for murder -- may be different depending on what might be deemed to be the motivation? Can you imagine a football game where the penalty for roughing the passer is 20 yards rather than 15 yards if the referee concludes that the violence perpetrated was motivated because the quarterback was homosexual? Is it not a sign of our own pathology that we now have codified that it is worse to murder a homosexual than someone who has committed adultery, even with your husband or wife, or who has slandered or robbed? Isn't the point murder? Can we really believe that someone capable of murder is less likely to do so if the victim is a homosexual and the penalties are greater? It should be clear that hate crime law has nothing to do with improving our law but rather with creating favored political classes. It is something that should be hateful to everyone who cares about a free society, and particularly hateful to those, such as blacks, who have been victimized by politicization of law. How about the sad and pathetic recent murder of a 16-year-old Christian black honor student in Chicago by four teenage thugs, also black? A hate crime? Black on black homicides are tearing up our inner cities. Hate crimes? The social breakdown that produces the disproportionate violence in black America is the product of the same moral relativism and politicization of law that has produced hate crime bills. We already have a source, which instructs against murder and to love your neighbor as yourself. But this has been banned from our schools and our public spaces. So once again, in what is becoming our Godless nation, we mistake the disease for the cure. More Articles from Star Parker: The Health Care Fatal Conceit We can expect the same results from government taking over health care as we've gotten from housing socialism. Al Sharpton, today's Orval Faubus Sharpton blocked Limbaugh like Governor Orval Faubus tried to block black children from entering Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Consumers need protection -- from government 700 of 1600 payday loan offices in Ohio have closed. Outrage over ACORN, but not abortion A great lie has found its way into our national culture -- a lie that has deadened our senses -- that we can contend with life's challenges in a morally relative way. Video: Star Parker with Neil Cavuto African-Americans are no longer buying into the 'plantation mentality' of the Left. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) 722 12th Street, NW Fourth Floor Washington, DC 20005 Telephone 202-479-2873 http://www.urbancure.org/ Conservative Caps, Shirt and more! Leave a Comment - Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Visit us on Twitter!