Hate Law Expansion Sought to Make Prosecutions Easier
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Chris Christoff, Detroit Free Press, July 24, 2008
Michigan’s hate crime law would expand to include intimidation of gays and lesbians and people with disabilities, and would make hanging a noose or burning a cross specific property crimes, under changes urged by civil rights groups, legislators and law enforcement officials Wednesday.
Those changes will be on a fast track in the House beginning in August, said Rep. Paul Condino, D-Southfield, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He said Wednesday that he would introduce a bill to strengthen the state’s ethnic intimidation law.
{snip}
Condino said the Democrats, who hold the majority in the House, are solidly behind the plan along with a number of Republicans.
Law enforcement officials supporting the revisions said they will make it easier to prosecute people for committing crimes that are motivated by the hatred of groups.
The proposal could face resistance in the Republican-controlled Senate, where conservatives have long opposed giving specific legal protections to sexual orientation.
{snip}
Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, said the revisions will add teeth to the hate crime law.
“When you attack someone who is gay or who is disabled, it’s an attack on all gay and disabled people,” Clarke said.
Linda Parker, director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, said the changes will address a growing number of hate crimes in Michigan. She said civil rights advocates and police are frustrated because they cannot effectively prosecute people for hanging nooses on properties with the intent of frightening others, or charge attackers with intimidating people based on their sexual orientation.
The civil rights department cited several instances this year of nooses displayed in workplaces to frighten or intimidate people.
Parker said Michigan ranked third among states in the number of reported hate crimes, with 739 in 2006, according to FBI data.
Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackey said the changes would make it easier to convict those who harass or intimidate others because of appearance. He said defendants could no longer claim they mistook a victim for another race, gender or religion.
The motive itself would be a crime, regardless of whether the victim was part of a protected class of people under the hate crime law.
{snip}
Mackey said the law does not infringe on free speech, adding, “You can say you hate whoever you want, you just can’t commit a crime against a person or their property.”
{snip}
It also would be a bias-motivated crime to intimidate someone merely for associating with others from a protected group. For instance, someone who harasses or threatens a white person for associating with African Americans could be charged with a bias-motivated crime.
Email Chris Christoff at christoff@freepress.com.
(Posted on July 24, 2008)
Comments
She said civil rights advocates and police are frustrated because they cannot effectively prosecute people for hanging nooses
So that’s what they continue to focus on. Don’t these dimwits realize most of those turn out to be hoaxes. And when they are found to be hoaxes, nothing happens. The hoaxter just says “well I was just trying to create awareness”
Posted by at 7:55 PM on July 24
As a previous poster so brilliantly suggested, why not make it an automatic hate crime for a member of one race to assault a member of another race. Blacks and the liberal establishment would never agree to such a law because for all their bellowing they know the truth is most interracial crimes are black on white.
Posted by at 8:00 PM on July 24
These unCivil Rights people put a premium on nooses and cross burnings but ignore real crimes when it’s black on white robbery, rape, murder, etc. Were the perps in the “wichita Massacre” or the “Knoxville Horror” charged with hate crimes? Of course not….it was just a random act.
John from Arkansas
Posted by at 8:38 PM on July 24
the very concept of a hate crime is absurd; a legal nullity and an unconstitutional criminalization of thought itself; if they must have hate crimes, they should begin by concentrating on violent crimes motivated by black hatred of whites since black on white crime is far, far more common that the reverse.
Should such legislation pass, it would criminalize both thought and speech—anyone in Michigan ever hear of the Bill of Rights?
Posted by at 8:39 PM on July 24
It’s obvious the Detroit Free Press wants you to see these draconian changes in the law as merely necessary to protect “minorities” from us hateful, bigoted White people. What these changes really mean, if enacted, is “Bye-bye, civil liberties!”
It would have been so much better a piece of reporting if at least one person in the public eye who doesn’t agree with this rush to make it easy to prosecute had been sought out and interviewed. But of course that isn’t the style for today’s leftist news media. Don’t dilute the message by muddying it up with anything from the other point of view — THAT’S the style.
Posted by Wayne Engle at 9:00 PM on July 24
“The civil rights department cited several instances this year of nooses displayed in workplaces to frighten or intimidate people”
I’d sure like to know about the circumstances.
Was it during Halloween (when you’re trying to frighten people), or was it one of these hoax crimes?
Posted by kitty at 9:04 PM on July 24
I guess the 30,000 plus Black on White rapes are not “hate crimes” (0-10 White on Black rapes according to justice department report).
Since only hetrosexual, English speaking males are capable of Racism and “hate crimes” the rest of the horrible crimes must be “love crimes”.
So the Knoxville Horror, Wichita KS massacre ad the murder of Eve Carson must be “love crimes”.
Get active at the state and local level to beat back these Soviet style, anti White thought crimes.
Posted by JR at 10:00 PM on July 24
“why not make it an automatic hate crime for a member of one race to assault a member of another race”
Every crime perpetrated between members of one ‘group’ on another should be considered hate. I’d like to see that, But, I suppose that would only work for crimes where force has been used or injury has occured or obvious menacing. Or if someone displays a ‘noose’.
Posted by at 10:20 PM on July 24
“When you attack someone who is gay or who is disabled, it’s an attack on all gay and disabled people,” Clarke said.
When you attack someone who is white or European, it’s an attack on all white, European people. Yes? If not, why not? Does some kind of different logic apply? Is it harder to notice that someone is white as opposed to gay or disabled? Or is it just more socially sanctioned to hate white people?
Posted by Zorba_the_Geek at 10:27 PM on July 24
Most cases of hate crimes provides a revealing window on the disturbing - not to say disgusting — state of the civil rights delusion in America. The U.S. Justice Department has reported that 85% of all inter-racial violence in America is committed by blacks against whites. But there are apparently no black hate crimes; and there is certainly no white civil rights movement to create sympathy for the victims.
Nor can there be one in the present atmosphere of racial hypocrisy, where the mere expression of concern over attacks on white people would itself make an individual a ripe target for racial witch-hunters.
Posted by JAKE at 10:47 PM on July 24
“When you attack someone who is gay or who is disabled, it’s an attack on all gay and disabled people,” Clarke said.
This is primitive tribalism, pure and simple.
Posted by at 10:48 PM on July 24
“When you attack someone who is gay or who is disabled, it’s an attack on all gay and disabled people,” Clarke said.
so when you attack someone who is white, it’s an attack on all white people.
simple logic.
Posted by crow at 11:26 PM on July 24
If diversity is a strength and something desired by everyone, why would it be necessary to enact laws that punish people for disliking one another?
The push for laws like this reveals the failure of diversity more than anything else.
Posted by mitch at 12:25 AM on July 25
Are politicians one of the protected groups? I sure hate them.
Michigan must have remarkably few problems if their politicians have nothing better to do than fret about someone putting up nooses. Especially since 99% of the time the noose hanger will turn out to be a black person seeking the mantle of victim hood.
“When you attack someone who is gay or who is disabled, it’s an attack on all gay and disabled people,” Clarke said.
But of course if you attack a heterosexual white man, it’s only considered to be an attack on one person. So much for equal protection under the law.
Posted by Heteronormatively Privileged White Male Oppressor at 12:50 AM on July 25
The whole purpose of “hate crimes” laws is to divert attention away from the fact that about 90% of interracial crime is Black on White.
The everyday robberies, rapes, murders and assaults that Blacks perpetrate against Whites can thus be trivialized and brushed aside while a noose hanging or a cross burning becomes national news.
Posted by at 1:31 AM on July 25
Detroit is collapsing onto itself and is awash in corruption, mismanagement, crime and violence. Yet they busy themsleves with faux outrage at a piece of knotted rope or some such. Imbeciles…
Posted by HH at 1:39 AM on July 25
Equal Protection Under the Law. A totally alien concept for leftists and lawmakers.
Posted by at 5:00 AM on July 25
From the article: “The civil rights department cited several instances this year of nooses displayed in workplaces to frighten or intimidate people.”
The problem is, we don’t know *which* “instances.” The one at Central Michigan University, for example, was quite possibly a hoax. As far as I know, the Isabella County prosecutor is still “investigating” it. It seems to me that the Michigan civil rights establishment simply wants to hang people for any display of a noose, reguardless of context or intent.
Posted by larry k at 10:17 AM on July 25
By all means, Paul Condino, but let’s not overlook the many Black-on-WHITE hate crimes perpetrated. Let’s make it easier to prosecute those black criminals, also.
Posted by Fed Up at 12:53 PM on July 25
“When you attack someone who is gay or who is disabled, it’s an attack on all gay and disabled people,”
“so when you attack someone who is white, it’s an attack on all white people.”
Attacks can be more then just physical! They can be verbal. Symbolic. A gesture. That’s why we have laws against inciting racial hatred, menacing, harassment, ethnic intimidation. This hateful environment that they mean to create must be stopped no matter the consequences. A good place to begin would be with those who sponsored this one-sided (hateful) libelous bill, and then with those who purvey this racial hatred. Like the Detroit free press.
Posted by Dinosaur Hatchling at 1:31 PM on July 25
If all people were prosecuted/antagonized equally for “hate” crimes and—ugh—“bias,” everyone would be either bankrupt or in prison.
As it is now, whites are supposedly all closet Neo-Nazis ready to start burning crosses or worse, and the poor innocent blacks are taking their lives into their hands whenever they go anywhere near an affluent white neighborhood. Ridiculous.
Posted by Candace at 2:54 PM on July 25
After some sort of enormous PC foolishness, something reminiscent of the fake Duke rape case, this will probably be found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and result in a very nice payday for some lawyer, which the taxpayers of Michigan will end up paying.
Posted by at 5:46 PM on July 25
“When you attack someone who is gay or who is disabled, it’s an attack on all gay and disabled people,” Clarke said.
This remarkable statement makes two extraordinary claims. First: It says that an attack on a disabled person is an attack on all gay people. Secondly: It says that an attack on a gay person is an attack on all disabled people.
Try to comprehend how politically unassailable the anti-white social-engineers must be at this point in history, when the don’t even have to think about what they say.
Posted by at 7:04 PM on July 25
So, there needs to be law to protect gays from intimidation and harassment, right? As if laws ever “protected” anybody. Sure, rape is illegal, but that fact is not going to stop a crime from being prevented. At best it punishes the perpetrator when (or if) they’re caught. What is needed is for the MAJORITY of victims of hate crimes (white men and women) to be vigilant and arm themselves. Laws never prevented a crime, but guns do.
Posted by James at 8:19 PM on July 25
As other commentators have pointed out, I think that if we are going to have a category of “hate crimes”, where a criminal act involving hatred of people of a particular group is deemed a hate crime, then we have to be fair about applying those laws equally to all groups, not just groups deemed “minorities” at the present time in a particular place, or those groups considered by liberal views on the subject to have been historically oppressed. A minority group today is a majority group tomorrow, an oppressed group today is the oppressor tomorrow or wherever the political climate allows for that.
FOr instance, here in Oakland, CA, where I live, I routinely hear of black on white “hate crimes” such as this one a few months ago: a group of black males in a car knocking over two white women who are riding bicycles, then saying to them, “Don’t ever ride in front of blacks!” Or gangs of black juveniles, running up to white pedestrians and hitting them on the head with a metal pipe, then running away laughing, something that happened to three people in my neighborhood, one of them a friend of mine who was knocked unconscious.
Oakland politics being what it is, people strongly resist seeing these types of crimes as hate crimes. State or federal agencies should step in and punish city governments that would apply “hate crime” laws in such a biased manner that white, heterosexual or other “non-minority” group victims are not seen as protected by the laws.
Posted by WhiteIsAColor at 9:04 PM on July 25
Under Obama we will be living under a police state and will not be allowed to think of anything that might offend anyone. We’re just about at that point now.
Posted by sandstorm at 10:29 AM on July 26
Detroit is collapsing onto itself and is awash in corruption, mismanagement, crime and violence. Yet they busy themsleves with faux outrage at a piece of knotted rope or some such. Imbeciles…
Posted by HH at 1:39 AM on July 25
Isn’t a star that collapses on itself a BLACK HOLE? or is Detroit a black hole that is collapsing on itself and none of Michigan’s tax dollars are able to escape its pull. .
Posted by Skip at 9:36 AM on July 27
What about the homosexuals that spit on and attack hetrosexuals? Do these special totalitarian enhancements apply to them?
No. But that wording should be in this piece of biased legislation.
It’s sickening but homosexual gangs exist in our urban cities today. They carry guns and commit crimes, including rape, against hetrosexuals.
Here’s one of many news reports on this subject: http://www.nbc10.com/news/2857417/detail.html
Homosexuals should be held to exactly the same enhancements that hetrosexuals are.
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 12:44 AM on July 28
Thank goodness we have “hate crime” laws to help us distinguish between hate-filled violent criminals and violent criminals that are just good-natured, normal folks.
Posted by H. Dumpty at 4:00 AM on July 31
“homosexual gangs exist in our urban cities today. They carry guns and commit crimes, including rape, against hetrosexuals.” (Posted by Unemployed WASP at 12:44 AM on July 28”
Wha..? There’s nothing about “rape, against hetrosexuals” in the article you linked! (But it’s an extremely interesting article—thanks for it.)
I watched the video at your link—this is just another variety of black teen-age bullying. They’re bullying because they’re black, not because they’re homosexual!
Sheesh—let’s not get carried away.
Posted by H. Dumpty at 9:50 AM on July 31