I agree. Hate crime ends up being thought crime in the sense that if you kill someone you are charged one way but if you kill them while using an epithet there will be an extra penalty for your spoken thought. It makes the assumption that the crime is more serious because of the thoughts and feelings of the perpetrators. And in this case it is criminalizing speech and making that a crime. Well said, Ursula.
~Brian On Feb 15, 2007, at 8:04 AM, Ursula Stange wrote:
This whole hate crime business leaves a bad taste in the mouth though. Why should it be a crime to say that the holocaust did not happen? Why not just ignore it? Why not just ridicule it? How is a law against holocaust denial any different than a law against denying Mohammed?What would we say if Muslim countries had laws against crusade denial?
