Hate Crimes

Written by David Frum on Friday October 23, 2009

The Senate has just enacted the Matthew Sheppard Act, adding homosexuals to the list of groups covered by federal hate crimes laws. Like most conservatives, I flinch from hate crimes laws in general. But if we do have them - and we do - it's hard to see the justification for omitting homosexuals for their coverage.

The Senate has just enacted the Matthew Sheppard Act, adding homosexuals to the list of groups covered by federal hate crimes laws.

Like most conservatives, I flinch from hate crimes laws in general. But if we do have them - and we do - it's hard to see the justification for omitting homosexuals for their coverage. As the FBI's numbers show, the US experiences more than 10 times as many anti-gay hate crimes as anti-Islamic hate crimes.

And if you consider violent crimes, gays face attacks even more out of proportion to their numbers.

In all 2007, there were 33 bias-motivated violent crimes against Muslims, and 682 against homosexuals and bisexuals.

Hard to see the justification for the care and concern for the rarely targeted category and the law's disregard of the people actually in danger.

Category: News