Hateful Crimes

    The term "hate crime" gets thrown around a lot these days, too much in my opinion. The term usually refers to a racist or biased motivated crime. Anytime a crime is committed against someone of a different religion, culture, sex or ethnicity it could be perceived as a "hate crime". I think it would be a wonderful thing if we could stop hate, Ill be the first one to say this. The problem I have is it seems we are getting awfully close to prosecuting "thought crimes". When someone is convicted of a "hate crime" the sentence is often much more harsh than a "normal crime". Hate by itself is not illegal, so why is a "hate crime" worse than a "normal crime"? I'm not fully convinced that it should be. Are these rational, logical conclusions or just emotional reactions?  For example, if a crime is worth 1 point and hate is worth 0 points, why do they add up to equal 2? For the record I think hate is wrong and I don't hate anyone. With that being said, you can hate all you want, in fact you can hate everyone and everything your entire life and your free to do so. However, even though committing a crime is already illegal, it is now "extra" illegal because of your thoughts at the time of the crime. Most people never give this topic much thought but it is a reality in our society. Sadly, there is not much defense against a "thought crime" accusation, only you and God know your true motives and intentions Who knows, maybe one day it will be illegal to hate. There is a link provided below for examples of "hate crimes".-BDB

Sources - (Google Images)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_W._Kennedy