USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

Main: normal long no graphics Contact Log archives Best log entries Other articles Site Search

Stardate 20010901.0747 (On Screen): It's a tragedy. Another gay has been brutally murdered, probably because he was gay. This time he was 16 years old and it took place in Colorado. The likely murderer is in custody and the local prosecutor thinks he has a good case; they may try for a charge of capital murder but it's unlikely that they'll accept a plea bargain. But inevitably this is raising calls for new laws to increase the penalties for hate crimes. I find that troubling.

First, I find it troubling because it is an attempt to punish motives and not actions. Why should the reason why someone does something evil affect the way we punish them? Except, of course, for cases where we forgive them entirely such as "justifiable homicide" or "self defense"? When we get into punishing thoughts instead of deeds, we cross an ethical divide and enter a wilderness where I don't want to go. I am very afraid of anything that smacks of punishing thought crimes.

The other problem with it is that any time you discriminate in favor of one group, you are implicitly discriminating against some other. We punish murder because it is wrong to deprive someone of their opportunity to live their life. A murder is a life wasted, and we punish that heavily because of the value of what was lost. But as soon as we start grading the punishments as a function of who was murdered, then we begin a legal process of deciding whose lives are more valuable -- and thus whose lives are relatively less valuable. If murdering a gay teenager draws a bigger penalty than, say, a middle-aged heterosexual man (like me) then it means that the law is declaring that a gay man is more valuable than a straight man, that a young man is more valuable than a middle aged man. The converse would be equally wrong, of course; a young gay man is also no less valuable than a middle-aged heterosexual man. We're both equally valuable. Not only is that a constitutional principle (the 14th amendment "equal protection" clause) but it's a moral imperative.

There are cases where assigning a value to people is unavoidable. When you have one liver to transplant and two patients who need it, you have to decide which to give it to. If the choices are a 16-year-old man and an 80-year-old woman, I think the choice is clear, all other things being equal. But that's triage, not the law. And in any case where no such decision is forced by circumstances, it is morally unacceptable to assign differing values to lives. There is no such need with regard to law enforcement. The murderer of Fred Martinez Jr. should be punished and punished heavily; not because Martinez was gay, but because he was a human who was murdered. That is sufficient; no other justification for punishment is needed. (discuss)