Do you remember when the Tories first started talking about the West Lothian question and 'English votes for English matters'? Long before we had Harriet Harman on the airwaves saying it was the death knell tolling on the Union their line was that it would create two classes of MP. Or what about when there were proposals from the Tories for 'Patient Passports'? That would, they said, create a two-tier health service defined by class. Even with all the talk of modernisation, the instinctive criticisms they continue to make still comes down to a matter of class in one way or another. Two-tier systems and multi-class citizens are bad, equitable outcomes are good.
Having said this of course I’m probably not being fair, because the creation of second class Xs is not something that they are averse to creating in all circumstances. Yesterday's Queen's Speech - trailed by Brown months before - confirmed this willingness to create that which they claim to despise. We may not be getting a two-tier education or health system, and they certainly don't plan on resolving the inequity of the current Constitutional settlement, but they do intend to create second-class victims of physical assault and verbal abuse.
Very soon you see it will be the case that if I get seven bells of shit kicked out of me only one crime will have been committed. Meanwhile if Iain Dale or my colleague faces the same situation and the words 'you fucking poof' are uttered then it will be a more serious assault. In fact if someone calls me a 'fucking twat' but calls them a 'gay fucking twat', I will have no recourse in law. However they will, if they so wanted, be able to go to the Police and say a 'hate crime' has been committed against them. Personally I’d say that in both cases a level of hatred - at the very least momentarily - is being displayed. It’s merely the adjectives that are different and yet one will be considered of lesser value and importance to the other.
So much for equality before the law huh? Soon if a heterosexual man is beaten up by a group of gay men, or for that matter lesbians, simply because he is straight (it may be rare but it can happen) that will simply be assault of whatever degree (common, actual or grievous). The reverse however will be a proscribed form of hatred that places the assault on a pedestal of higher seriousness and the victim of the former as a lesser victim. The two-tier victim of violence on the basis of what you choose to do with your genitals is thus born.
Surely victims of violence are victims of violence? The motivation for the violence should not alter the seriousness with which the law judges and punishes the act. If a 15 year-old kid is beaten up because someone “didn’t like the look of him” is he really less of a victim of an unjustified attack than his friend who is beaten up because he is gay? Surely it is the assault that is the crime, not the reason that someone chooses for doing it?
When someone is murdered we don’t take the perpetrator to court for the crime of his reasoning. We ask perhaps two questions; was it premeditated or was it an accident. If that person says they decided they wanted to go out and kill a gay man because they 'hate poofs'. there is no greater or lesser moral value to the act than if they had done it because the person they killed had owed them money or, as is more common today, 'disrespected' them. At the end of the day they're a murderer, they commited a murder, that is morally wrong, end of.
This Government is very quick it seems to talk about equality and also criticise anything from the Opposition that might create a two-tier system or second-class citizens. Yet when it comes to its proposals for 'hate crimes' (or more correctly 'thought crimes') it has no qualms about creating a system that categorises victims into special cases where some victims are more equal than others. We've often heard from them about how the 'victim' should be at the centre of criminal justice, and yet here we have a policy that will say that two people will identical injuries should not to be treated as equal victims of a morally unjustified and criminal attack simply because of who they fancy.
25 comments:
The problem, as C S Lewis siad in one of his books, is that they don't teach logic in our schools.
This government seems incapable of applying logic to it's pronouncements / bills. As a result it is continually facing "Unintended consequences".
Ah Dizzy, but what happens in the law if the thugs beat you up while accusing you of being gay, even though you are not ?
Does that make it a hate crime, or not ?
Alan Douglas
Once again NuLabor dive in feet first thinking they need a new law to redress a perceived problem.
Why, oh why, can they just not see if they can get existing legislation to work first.
If you are assaulted, you are assaulted - full stop.
It is up to the judge to take other factors into consideration when sentencing.
Are you sure you're not breaking some law in even bringing this subject up?
(If not today then the time will come, sigh.)
Juries are already remarkably reluctant to convict of racially aggravated assault, for precisely the reasons you explain. When necessary, they just convict of assault, without the aggravating element.
The thing's a nonsense anyway, because any aggravating feature of any crime can always be taken into account in the sentence. We need more laws like a hole in the head.
There was nice piece in the Speccie a while ago on this . I feel the legislation unfairly favouring gay men on adoption was more to the point given the difficuties everyone else has ..( not Milliband of course)
There always seem to have to be tokens for the progressives who really should not be supprtiong labour at all but see the party as a state whthin a state What a waste of time Fox hunting was , the ultimate token
"Soon if a heterosexual man is beaten up by a group of gay men, or for that matter lesbians, simply because he is straight (it may be rare but it can happen) that will simply be assault of whatever degree (common, actual or grievous). "
Are you sure about this? Wouldn't this be a hate crime in the same way? Sexual orientation being a factor, and all that?
Not sure to be honest, that example may be wrong, although the talk has been of "gay hate crime" not "sexual orientation hate crime". The general point remains though.
It all comes back to South Park. You should watch Cartman's silly hate crime 2000. Its analysis of these sort of laws is brilliant.
Personally, I disagree. If an assault is caused because of someone's sexual orientation, skin colour or similar, that is by logic a hate crime against a certain type of minority. That is IMO logically and inherently an additional crime to that of the assault itself, and should be treated as such.
"Ah Dizzy, but what happens in the law if the thugs beat you up while accusing you of being gay, even though you are not ?"
In this case, Dizzy would be prosecuted for being openly straight.
Whilst the anonymous at 12:57 is clearly wrong I respect that they are actually willing to openly support the criminalisation of the wrong thoughts. Shame the comment was anonymous though, more respect would be added if it had a name next to it. Stalin perhaps?
Finkelstein signposted an interesting article from across the pond that highlights exactly this concern; a man who was prosecuted for a gay hate crime, whom - it subsequently turned out - was himself secretly gay.
Easy to see this as simply another step to actually outlawing certain thoughts (which is, philosophically, what it is. It is, after all, maintaining the punishment for driving your fist into someone's face but adding an extra punishment for the gay-hating that went before that.)
Now, they are trying to bring in similar legislation for 'hate crime' against disabled people. (see here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7081085.stm)
and it's so easy! Because no one thinks any more it took them approx. 15 seconds to find someone who has, quite commendably, spent years fighting for disabled people to be treated equally [as he sees it] to non-disabled people. Of course he goes off at the deep end in favour of the subject closest to his heart. Likewise Stonewall supports this piece of legislation, the less bright religionists supported the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill (the brighter ones had already spotted that it would ultimately cost them more than it would benefit them and said so).
once you have split the country into a thousand minority groups all clawing for their own advantage, this sort of politics becomes a matter of course. That is not to rant against immigration or tolerance, but against the willingness of said groups (including 'straight white men' vide Littlejohn et al "Oh, we're in the minority now, who'll fight for our rights" ad nauseam) to act and think like an oppressed minority instead of looking for common ground.
ach well.
If the bill provides equal protection in cases that involved "you gay *#!" and "you straight *#!" or of any religion (including none) or of any skin colour then it is fair to all sides.
Clearly this is a bill aimed at abuse of minorities and so in practise it will be disproportionally used to protect minorities. But that doesn't exclude its use for the protection of straight white Christian men or women i.e. the majority.
I'm not sure what people actually think comes into it because in court there is still a burden of proof to show the motivation with hard evidence and unless the suspect admits their motivation it is difficult to prove.
If a group of gay men attacked a straight man but didn't use language to indicate the attack was because he was straight there would still be cause to suspect the crime was a hate crime because of the groups exclusive membership. In the end it comes down to the discretion of the CPS or a judge.
Also if a judge is convinced by the hate crime motivation then they can take that into account in the sentencing. Judges already take different factors into account when deciding sentencing and minimum tariffs.
If case no-one's pointed this out already, this:
"Soon if a heterosexual man is beaten up by a group of gay men, or for that matter lesbians, simply because he is straight (it may be rare but it can happen) that will simply be assault of whatever degree (common, actual or grievous)."
is completely wrong.
See here:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/newsrelease081007a.htm
where it says:
"inciting hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation"
It protects hetrosexuals as well as bisexuals and homosexuals just the same way racially aggravated assault works both ways ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6123014.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/6378593.stm )
But hey, why let little things like that get in the way of good rant eh?
James Enfield,
To be fair, the example is arguably wrong, but the sentiment behind the original post is still sound.
A rant indeed if it weren't for the fact that your criticism damns one of multiple examples rather than the actual argument being made.
"If the bill provides equal protection in cases that involved "you gay *#!" and "you straight *#!" or of any religion (including none) or of any skin colour then it is fair to all sides."
Wel, it isn't fair to the guy who is beaten up by thugs 'just because', and then sees his attackers get a lesser sentence, no...
But I guess you didn't bother to read the actual post.
"Judges already take different factors into account when deciding sentencing and minimum tariffs."
Yeah, how's that working out for you...? Because here in the real world, sentencing is a bit of a joke!
Laugh - I nearly shat myself. A complaint about second class citizens from a Tory - Section 28 anyone?
I was 11 when Section 28 was introduced and I joined the Conservative Party in November 2005. So errrr..... what's your point?
Hey - great blog!
As an American, I'll tell you the United States has the same insanity with our "Matthew Shepard Act", so called after a gay man who was killed, but the irony is it was later revealed that he was killed over money for drugs, not because he was gay, as everyone had assumed.
But don't worry, if you are charged with a gay hate crime, there is a brilliant defense! Just tell the court that you now realize you are gay too (like this man did).
Moreover, your nation can't even prosecute the hate crimes it has already (here, for example). Laws like this are not terribly effective, but in passing them, politicians can claim they are "doing something" about a problem.
Well, it isn't fair to the guy who is beaten up by thugs 'just because', and then sees his attackers get a lesser sentence, no...
You ignore that there is already a great number of degrees of seriousness under a single charge such ABG, GBH, manslaughter and murder to name a few. In our law there is distinction between a serial murder and genocide but it is intent of the perpetrator defines the different charges. There will never be a case were 2 crimes are identical except for sexual orientation because no 2 people are alike in other respects and the judge has to take that into account.
Yeah, how's that working out for you...? Because here in the real world, sentencing is a bit of a joke!
That is because Judges aren't allowed to do their job any more because politicians under pressure from "lock em up, throw away the key" conservatives have mostly prescribed what Judges do. You can't blame Judges for sentencing when all they are allowed to do is follow sentencing scripts passed by parliament. Also the government is in charge of the early release policy which is a joke. And there are the parole officers as well.
"That is because Judges aren't allowed to do their job any more because politicians under pressure from "lock em up, throw away the key" conservatives have mostly prescribed what Judges do."
Is that the "lock em up, throw away the key" conservatives who have been in power for the last decade, or the other "lock em up, throw away the key" conservatives?
DK
If particular people are targeted because of personal characteristics, then I think it reasonable that the assailants know the possible consequences.
Incidentally, John Rohan's comments above are erroneous. They were the pathetic excuses made by his murderers, trying to reduce their sentence.
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