“Hate crimes” legislation is bad, ‘k?

I don’t usually get into politics, particularly not “LGBT issues”. This started out as a comment on 22rants, but it got a bit long so I moved it here. Feel free to blame him

If I murder someone, that’s bad. That should already be punished quite severely – more severely than it usually does, what with pleas of insanity and “extenuating circumstance” or whatever.

If I murder someone who’s not identical to me – then there’s likely to be some kind of reason for it.

I might murder my wife; is it because I want to be rid of her without a divorce, or is it because I hate women?

I might murder my accountant; is it because he knows I’m stealing money from the company, or do I hate him because he’s Jewish?

I might murder my neighbor; am I tired of his poorly-kept yard and the three barking dogs, or do I hate him because he’s black?The trouble with “hate crimes” getting punished “more” – which I assume is what the Matthew Shepard Act was intended to do; have you actually read it? is that the scope of the bill makes pretty much any act of violence one that *could* have been motivated by “bias”.

Specifically, it allows the federal government the power to take part in any criminal investigation where “bias” against (various groups) might have been an issue. So if a woman is killed by a man – there could be bias! get the Feds in! If a black man is killed by a white man – maybe it was a lynching! get the Feds in! If a gay guy is killed by a straight guy – maybe it was bashing! get the Feds in! Of course, there’s nothing that says that the Feds are going to be that much more effective. (They’d only get an extra $10M a year to investigate such crimes.) So that’s all the cases where bias *could* have been a motive.

The other cases – where it was clear that bias was the motive, as in “someone shoots a gay kid who asked him to be his valentine” – already get quite a lot of attention. Deservedly so; that’s not a good reason to do anything. So how would the Matthew Shepard Act stop such crimes? “I could’ve gotten over the fact that murder’s already a felony when it was just the sheriff’s department investigating me, but if it’s gonna be the FBI then I better not” is about the only thought that comes to mind. So it would possibly prevent crimes in places where wannabe gay bashers expect the local police to be incompetent or unsympathetic. Wouldn’t it be better to

The biggest objection to it is that it’s yet another expansion of federal power into the local level. There are already local and state authorities to investigate crimes of every kind. If they are not able or not willing to recognize “anti-gay bias” as a motive, then they should be educated to consider the possibility and understand that it’s not a valid reason for killing someone. (The media are already doing so for every case they can, at no cost to law enforcement.) The Matthew Shepard Act is an attempt to expand the power of the federal government (you know, the one currently ruled over “with an iron fist” by the eeeeeeevil Dubya) rather than letting communities and states make up their own minds.

Finally, in one last attempt to make some heads explode: There’s been a big outcry over domestic wiretapping aimed at identifying and catching terrorists. Given the great horror and shock associated with hate crimes against gays, would domestic wiretapping be acceptable to monitor potential gay bashers? That is, monitor conversations for signs of planned “hate crimes”, so that they can be stopped before they start?

If not, then how can you justify supporting policy (the Matthew Shepard Act) that are not proved to reduce “hate crimes” if you won’t support policy that would?