Bias-motivated crime

Bias-motivated crime
Recent history should teach us that hate crimes are different

Jan. 8, 2001

State Rep. Mark Larson, R-Cortez, will reintroduce legislation this session to expand the scope of the state’s existing ethnic intimidation law to include crimes motivated by age, gender, sexual orientation and mental illness. This time around, it’s termed "bias-crime legislation."

Hate-crime legislation has been a difficult commodity to sell because so many citizens have perceived it as special rights for other people. Events that have occurred over the past year may make Larson’s goal more difficult to achieve or they may aid him in his cause, depending upon how legislators and constituents have viewed what’s been happening here and elsewhere.

The most significant local news event in the Cortez area last year was the beating death of a transgendered Navajo teen. The trial of the man charged with killing him may reveal the motivations behind the murder, but evidence has been collected that suggests sexuality may have been a factor.

That crime may not add support for Larson’s bill, certainly not as much support as would have been gained if a heterosexual had been the victim and a young transgendered man the accused killer. That, in a word, is bias. Buried among all the rhetoric about whether or not it’s "fair" is the idea that some people really are viewed as deserving more protection than others.

On a broader scale, the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the United States was the most significant news event worldwide. It has changed the way Americans live and the way they view the world. We’ve lost the illusion that we are safe within our own borders. Some three thousand people, from dozens of nations, were killed just because they happened to be in the World Trade Centers and in the Pentagon on the morning of Sept. 11 — just because they were associated, perceptually, with the United States of America.

They were killed because someone didn’t like what they represented.

That’s the way bias works. It targets people for different treatment because of their genetic background, their religious or political affiliation, their medical condition, their address, their job, anything that identifies them as being different from a person who believes they are somehow less worthy of equal protection under the law. That’s why hate crimes are different: because those who commit them believe the victims are different.

And that’s why they must be treated differently.

In an ideal world, only a few laws would be required: Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill. The world isn’t perfect, though. It hasn’t been so very long since most Americans believed that anyone whose skin wasn’t white and whose gender wasn’t male was less than equal to those who were. We’ve come a long way since then, but not all the way.

Until harming a Native American, an African-American or an Arab-American, a homosexual, a Jew or a handicapped person is considered unthinkable in this country, special legislation will be needed to protect those who don’t enjoy the full protection of social convention. Larson should be supported in his efforts to pass sensible bias-crime legislation for Colorado.