[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 148 (Friday, October 16, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2222-E2223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   HATE CRIMES AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 16, 1998

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues in Congress as well 
as citizens everywhere an article authored by Richard Sincere, Jr., 
President of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty. Mr. Sincere 
aptly describes how the very essence of hate crimes undermines a pillar 
of a free and just society; that is, equal treatment under the law 
irrespective of which particular group or groups with whom an 
individual associates. Ours is a republic based upon the rights of the 
individual.

              [From the Houston Chronicle, Oct. 14, 1998]

           Gay Student's Murder Is No Reason To Make Bad Law

                      (By Richard E. Sincere, Jr.)

       The wicked murder of Matthew Shepard by two thugs, assisted 
     by two equally contemptible accomplices, has resurrected a 
     debate about the need for hate-crime laws.
       Shepard, an openly gay University of Wyoming student who 
     had been widely praised for his talents, ambitions and 
     personality,

[[Page E2223]]

     last week was beaten senseless and left for dead, tied up 
     like a scarecrow along a fence on a little-traveled country 
     road. Miraculously, he was found by passers-by many hours 
     after the attack, still struggling for life when he was 
     rushed to a hospital in Fort Collins, CO, where he died 
     Monday while on life support.
       Local law enforcement officials in Laramie, WY, where the 
     crime took place, quickly arrested the alleged perpetrators--
     two men who performed the assault and two women who helped 
     them hide their deed--and it looks like they will be punished 
     to the full extent the law allows if they are convicted. With 
     Shepard's death, they face a possible death sentence.
       Laramie, a university community of 27,000 people, is 
     feeling both shame and outrage, a sentiment shared by all 
     right-minded people throughout the country, indeed around the 
     world. News of this brutal assault has appeared everywhere in 
     print and broadcast media.
       The crime against Shepard has renewed calls for passing 
     hate-crime legislation, both in Wyoming and nationwide. 
     Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer and President Bill Clinton have 
     said that this attack shows the need for such laws.
       This would be a mistake. It would be a mistake because 
     hate-crime laws, however well intentioned, are feel-good laws 
     whose primary result is thought control, violating our 
     constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and 
     of conscience. It would be a mistake because it suggests 
     that crimes against some people are worse than crimes 
     against others. And it would be a mistake because it uses 
     a personal tragedy, deeply felt by Shepard's family and 
     friends, to advance a political agenda.
       Hunter College Professor Wayne Dynes, editor of the 
     Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, notes that hate-crime laws, if 
     they are to be applied in a constitutional manner, must be 
     content-neutral. He notes this example: ``Countless numbers 
     of people, aware of the unspeakable atrocities under his 
     leadership, hated Pol Pot. This hate was surely well 
     warranted. If one of the Pol Pot haters had killed him, would 
     this be a hate crime? Why not?''
       Dynes adds: ``In seeking to exculpate the killer, we would 
     get into the question of whether some hate is `justified' and 
     some is not.'' He concludes that hate-crime prosecutions 
     ``will be used to sanction certain belief systems--systems 
     which the enforcer would like, in some Orwellian fashion, to 
     make unthinkable. This is not a proper use of law.''
       Under our system of justice, everyone is equal before the 
     law. Those accused of crimes are entitled to certain 
     constitutional protection, which we must cherish, and the 
     victims of a crime--whether a Bill Gates or the poorest 
     street-sweeper in a slum--are entitled to the same respect. 
     (In the Middle Ages, the law required a greater punishment 
     for killing a rich man or noble than it did for killing a 
     peasant or a laborer. Our law recognizes no such 
     distinctions.)
       So, too, with class- or group-based distinctions. Is it 
     worse to kill a man because he is foreign-born than it is to 
     kill him to steal his car? Is it worse to kill a woman 
     because she is black than because she cut you off in traffic? 
     Is it worse to beat up a fat sissy boy if the bullies think 
     their victim is gay, or if they dislike him because he is 
     fat? Crime is crime; assault is assault. All deserve 
     punishment.
       Hateful thoughts may be disagreeable, but they are not 
     crimes in themselves. The crimes that result from hateful 
     thoughts--whether vandalism, assault or murder--are already 
     punishable by existing statutes.
       In a speech at the University of Texas last year, 
     libertarian activist Gene Cisewski said: ``We should be anti-
     violence, period. Any act of violence has to be punished 
     swiftly and severely and it shouldn't matter who the victim 
     is. The initiation of force is wrong and it doesn't matter 
     why--the mere fact you had a motive is enough.''
       Cisewski acknowledged the good intentions of those who 
     propose hate-crime laws. He noted that ``the reason for the 
     call for (such laws) comes from bad enforcement of the 
     laws.'' Police and prosecutors have been willing to look the 
     other way when victims came from unfavored groups. Luckily, 
     in the Shepard case, the authorities seem unwavering in their 
     prosecution. This is, unfortunately, not always the case.
       The answer, Cisewski suggested, and I agree, is that ``we 
     hold every law enforcement official and every court official 
     who administers justice to the standard that every American 
     is guaranteed equal protection under the law.''
       Hate-crime laws set up certain privileged categories of 
     people, defined by the groups to which they belong, and 
     offers them unequal protection under the law. This is wrong. 
     It is sad to see a young man's personal misfortune used by 
     various special-interest groups to advance such an agenda.
       We are all shocked and dismayed by the assault on Shepard. 
     Such brutality cannot, should not be countenanced. Let us not 
     multiply the crimes of his attackers by writing bad law in 
     response.

     

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