Hate Crime Legislation

Re George Will’s Oct. 14 commentary, “Whatever the Reason, a Murder Is a Murder”:

My views are my own and not those of the court on which I sit. The last person whom I recall saying “whatever the reason, a murder is a murder” was Sirhan Sirhan, who couldn’t understand why he was being denied parole because he happened to kill Robert Kennedy rather than someone else.

We punish wrongdoers in order to protect innocent people and to deter potential criminals. It is rather obvious that members of certain groups, for example, gays and African Americans, have long been abused simply because they are members of a group, and it seems similarly obvious that they should receive the additional protection that longer sentences hopefully afford.

Will also argues that basing the penalty for a crime on a wrongdoer’s state of mind is overly subtle and therefore inappropriate. Yet that happens to be the way our Anglo-American system has always worked. For example, kill a person in the heat of the moment and you face three to 11 years. Think about it overnight and you face life in prison. If the victim happens to be a public official, and that is why you kill, you may well face the death penalty.

JUDGE ROBERT T. ALTMAN

Superior Court, Santa Monica

I did not, at first, agree with the arguments for anti-hate crime legislation following the brutal torture-murder of Matthew Shepard. After all, plenty of laws exist against the crimes which were perpetrated on him.

But then I heard about people picketing the young man’s funeral (Oct. 17), pouring their hatred into an event already overburdened with the ravages of such hatred, and my opinion changed. Crimes which target humans primarily because of race, sex or sexual orientation, religious or political persuasion are not merely crimes against individuals. They are crimes against all humanity. They are the seeds of genocide; and the resounding “No!” which the law and society bring to bear against genocide can never be too strong.

CAROL KENT IRELAND

Van Nuys

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“Desecration of Civic Discourse” by Martin Marty (Opinion, Oct. 18) is right on target. The Southern, white Christian churches were among the leading defenders of slavery in the 1800s, among the leaders in denying blacks their civil rights in the 1900s and are now the leading advocates of homosexual bashing.

Their primary motives are money and power. Jesus Christ himself would never attend any of their churches except to close down those churches.

MARSHALL HEANEY

Riverside