Letter: Columnist way off the mark on hate crimes

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006 | 7:33 a.m.

George Will's Feb. 26 column offers his take on British historian David Irving's conviction in Austria. Even though Mr. Will lists about 14 countries besides Austria which have laws that criminalize speech justifying Nazi atrocities (America does not), he has the nerve to say, "American legislators, using the criminal law for moral exhibitionism, enact 'hate crime' laws. Hate crimes are, in effect, thought crimes" (my italics). Mr. Will delicately, and I dare say, mincingly declares, "Hate crime laws mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed as a result of, or at least accompanied by, particular states of mind of which the government particularly disapproves."

Oh, really. Throughout human civilization there is recognition of a principle that the severity of punishment is related to the severity of the crime. The worse the crime, the worse the punishment.

American legislators, sensibly, look at a hate crime this way. When a white man, for example, murders a black man because the man is black, how is that different from his killing the black man because they had a spat over a woman or a sum of money or some street code of honor? It is plenty different and Mr. Will ought to be able to see it. When a black man is killed because he is black, the entire black community in the neighborhood or the city suffers fear and anxiety, and their everyday routine is dramatically disturbed.

Is it not a crime to seriously threaten a life? Particularly innocent lives. Well, that's the added crime the killer commits, making the original crime more serious than killing in response to an act by the victim, not the color of skin.

Herman Gordon, Las Vegas