
Uncategorized
Meditations on Hatred
The U.S. Congress just passed the latest example of hate crime legislation, the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. These laws have become very popular over the last decade, and their purpose is to eliminate hate by increasing punishment when a crime — usually an assault on the persons or property of ethnic groups — is motivated by hatred. The strongest opposition to these laws has come from conservative Christians. Seen from historical perspective, this is surprising, because hatred used to be considered a deadly sin, and laws criminalizing hate thus use state power to impose traditional Christian morals on all Americans.