Hijexx wrote:
finethen wrote:

I think that man should be charged with a hate crime if they find out the accusation is true.

A crime is a crime, is it not? I never have liked the term "hate crime." If someone murders another person, it is murder, regardless of the reason why they didn't like them. No one murders another person if they like them anyway.

If it turns out he did violate the law, then he violated the law, regardless of the reason. I don't feel that another class of crime should be created with different levels of punishment based on the race, sex, or sexual disposition of the victim. Wouldn't that be discrimination in and of itself?

Crime is crime.

I believe in hate crimes now as I always have because they move beyond crimes into the realm of symbols. A burning cross on a lawn is not just property destruction. It is a symbol to that family, and the rest of the community. Comparing that with, say, smashing a mailbox, shows the distinction.

When a man is killed for his money, or a woman is raped while she jogs in the morning, it is no doubt awful and deserves to be punished to the full extent to the law. However, when a black man is killed and hung from a tree, or a jewish woman is raped by nazi thugs, the message is not just to those individuals. It is a symbolic threat to the whole community- especially communities that have been plagued by discrimination and hatred. For this reason, it needs to be treated as more than just the facially obvious crime.

In this scenario, where an individual was allegedly denied life-saving assistance because of his sexual orientation, this action sends a message to other gays in the community: the police may not help you like they would help straight people. They may choose to conceal their sexual identity to officers, or simply not call the police and rely on their own resources when accidents occur. Either way, the fact that the whole community has to fear for equal treatment because of this one cop's actions, I believe it should be considered a hate crime.

RE: Suit: W.Va. Police Chief Denied Gay Man CPR - Yahoo! News