Hate Crimes Bill Filed in NC House
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Friday May 04, 2007 00:23
by ChesterCHalk - The Asheville House
Scribble
FROM THE NEWSWIRE:
Hate Crimes Bill Filed in NC House
4/18/2007 - Today representatives filed a bill to expand the state hate crime law to include the LGBT community. NC thanks Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), Rep. Verla Insko (D-Orange), Rep. Susan Fisher (D-Buncombe), and Rep. Earl Jones (D-Guilford) and the 14 co-sponsors of House Bill 1631, the Safer Communities Act, for their leadership.
Rep. Pricey Harrison
The Bill would would expand the scope of the Ethinic Intimidation Act, North Carolina's law which address crimes motivated by bias or animosity. The bill would add age, gender, disability, and sexual orientation to the existing law, which includes race, color, religion, nationality and country of origin. The bill defines sexual orientation clearly to include protections for gender identity or expression.
Hate Crimes Bill Filed in NC House
4/18/2007 - Today representatives filed a bill to expand the state hate crime law to include the LGBT community. NC thanks Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), Rep. Verla Insko (D-Orange), Rep. Susan Fisher (D-Buncombe), and Rep. Earl Jones (D-Guilford) and the 14 co-sponsors of House Bill 1631, the Safer Communities Act, for their leadership.
Rep. Pricey Harrison
The Bill would would expand the scope of the Ethinic Intimidation Act, North Carolina's law which address crimes motivated by bias or animosity. The bill would add age, gender, disability, and sexual orientation to the existing law, which includes race, color, religion, nationality and country of origin. The bill defines sexual orientation clearly to include protections for gender identity or expression.
"Violence motivated by bias against the LGBT community continues to be a real problem in our state, and the Safe Communities Act would go a long way to ensuring that it is properly addressed by the justice system," says Ian Palmquist, Executive Director.
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3i'm no fans of laws, but as far as reforms go, sweet.
So Shuler voted against this bill, giving the reason that "we should not be classifying people" and that more is needed to stop hate crimes across the board, according to an article in the Citizen-Times (http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=...03164). But that article also notes that Shuler cited his Baptist upbringing as part of his reason for opposing the bill, noting that his religion teaches him that "homosexuality is wrong."
This bill is important because it makes it easier to take hate crime cases out of the hands of local officials when you've got a potentially racist or homophobic jury that's willing to look the other way on such offenses against nonwhites or LGBTU-people or whomever else. You can bet in these parts Shuler isn't the only one whose "values" teach him that being gay is "wrong." How ironic that he defends his position with religion, which he has the constitutional right to practice as he wishes while being protected against persecution by the federal gov't.
I was encouraged when Shuler signed a climate bill a few weeks ago, but this just pisses me off. It only goes to remind you how much it sucks that a homophobic rich white dude is considered an improvement in this district.
Radicals and progressives should be extremely weary of hate crimes legislation - which sets a dangerous precedent of punishing motivations rather than actions (b/c the actions - stalking, assault, etc - are already illegal). If the Orwellian overtures aren't convincing enough, you might consider the fact that previous racial hate crimes legislation has actually been used more frequently against people of color than whites. Far from protecting minorities, these laws are just an additional tools of repression in the state's arsenal.