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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (2728)	10/16/2000 6:33:57 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

I was responding to someone who was apparently confusing homosexuality with pedophilia. I was not responding to the merits of hate crimes. Logically it makes no sense to call homosexuals names because of homosexual sex criminals when there are tons of heterosexual sex criminals. Of course I don't see the "hilarity" in my post about sex crimes either, so clearly I'm missing something. I (of course) advocate the most serious penalties for people who abuse children. Whether heterosexual or homosexual child predators have the hgihest recidivism rates and should remain in prison for their entire lives with no possibiltiy of parole EVER. Hate crimes, as I understand them, go to motive- where a victim is singled out because he or she is a member of a class- i.e: black, homosexual, Hispanic etc. I do not think sexual victimization fits the hate crime standard- since the criminal is acting out of a desire to pursue his own violent sexual gratification, rather than acting out violently because of who the victim is. Generically almost ALL violent crimes seem to be "hate" crimes- since you generally don't have love in your heart when you murder, beat, or torture someone. The poster who brought up hate crimes was just trying to justify his desires to call homosexuals names. Actually, this angry display toward homosexuals on this board (and elsewhere on SI- I might mention- this is not the first example of homophobia I've seen here, and some of the examples have been very ugly) showcases the need for special hate crime protections. I was not in favor of hate crimes originally, but the more I see on SI the more I feel they may be necessary.