Hate Crimes 2009

What are we to make of hate crimes in America?  The Department of Justice provides a little insight with its most recent report on 2009 hate crimes.

A little perspective first.  What constitutes a “hate crime” in America is the lighter side of official policy in many other countries.  A hate crime against a homosexual in America is despicable.  I note only that organized opposition to hate might be well directed toward places beyond our borders where homosexuals are officially flogged or killed.  I note further that Protestants, Catholics and Coptic Christians are subject to rampant hate crimes, often officially sanctioned, in several countries.  Some solicitude with respect to this magnitude of hate may also be appropriate.

Sexual orientation commanded a substantial swath of the hate crimes, but not quite so much as religious hate crimes.  As compared to 1,223 incidents of sexual orientation hate crimes, there were 1,303 incidents of religious hate crimes.  Muslims suffered 107 of these incidents, Jews 931.  “Other” (not Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, or Agnostic) suffered 109.

I’m not sure what “Other” means, but they need representation.

The notion that Muslims are getting hated in America is absurd.  Or if they are, here and there, Jews are dealing with eight+ times the hate.  Let Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, Atheists, Agnostics, and all other religions unite in vocal opposition to the comparative epidemic of anti-Semitic hate.

Interestingly, there is no category for gender hate crimes.  But we know there are instances of men hating women and acting it out, for example, beating and stoning women to death for alleged and unproven acts of adultery.  Not in America thankfully.  Gender advocacy in America might properly pay a bit of proportionate attention to the wanton slaughter of women, along with the insistence on “equal pay” for unequal presence in the workplace.

Hate is detestable whatever its source and whatever its object.  It corrodes the soul and shrivels the human.  We have haters in America, but comparatively few, and they are marginalized.

Zero tolerance for hate, yes?  Let’s truly and fairly do that — and fairly lift our gaze to places where hate costs lives.