{"id":5204,"date":"2004-06-22T17:16:00","date_gmt":"2004-06-22T17:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multiracial.com\/?p=5204"},"modified":"2021-06-14T16:49:57","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T16:49:57","slug":"hate-crime-laws-for-no-good-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/2004\/06\/22\/hate-crime-laws-for-no-good-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Hate-crime laws, for no good reason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/columnists\/chi-0406200425jun20,0,6451171.column\">Hate-crime laws, for no good reason<\/a><br \/>\nThe Chicago Tribune<br \/>\nSteve Chapman<br \/>\nJune 20, 2004<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Jesus of Nazareth warned his followers to beware &#8220;when all men speak well of you.&#8221; He knew that universal praise can hide a multitude of sins. That is certainly the case with the hate-crimes law passed the other day by the U.S. Senate, which shows that irreproachable impulses can yield bad policy.<\/p>\n<p>The measure expands existing federal laws against &#8220;hate crimes&#8221; to include violent acts committed because of the victim&#8217;s &#8220;gender, sexual orientation, or disability.&#8221; This will enable federal law enforcement agents to go after criminals who single out gays, women or disabled people. The law is needed, says Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), because it &#8220;sends a signal that violence of any kind is unacceptable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Actually, existing criminal laws already do that. This one sends a signal that violence of certain kinds is especially unacceptable. Getting stomped to a pulp because you&#8217;re gay is somehow worse than getting stomped because you&#8217;re wearing a Red Sox jersey in the Bronx, or because someone resents your opinion of the war in Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hate-crime laws, for no good reason The Chicago Tribune Steve Chapman June 20, 2004 Jesus of Nazareth warned his followers to beware &#8220;when all men speak well of you.&#8221; He knew that universal praise&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[63,141],"tags":[125],"class_list":["post-5204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-d-powells-view","category-news-clips","tag-hate-crimes-and-hate-groups"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-1lW","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/AD-Powell.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7396,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204\/revisions\/7396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}