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When the Senate passed a federal hate-crimes measure by a 63-28 earlier this month, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., proclaimed, "This legislation will help to address the serious and growing problem of hate crimes."
I'm baffled. Washington passed the first federal hate-crimes bill in 1968 and 45 states have enacted hate-crime laws. This latest bill, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, expanded the list of hate crimes -- which originally focused on attacks based on the victims' race, color, religion or national origin -- to include those targeted because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
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No Thin Line Between Murder and Hate
You know.....I don't want to sound like I condone crime in any form because I don't, but I can understand someone robbing a convenience store in order to feed his family or something like that.
Hate crimes on the other hand have no purpose begind them other than to inflict the most painful death or harm to someone simply because of the way they look or their sexual persuasion. I ask you, can these animals that do these things to innocent poeople ever be punished severely enough....I say no.
Bring on more, harsh legislation and place a mandatory death penalty on all hate crimes and then see if the statistics go down or not.