Monday, August 23, 1999

Would someone please tell me why the term "hate crime," isn't recognized for what it is -- an absurd bit of double-talk?

What I mean is I've yet to hear of a crime that was an act of love.

Shortly after moving to the Asheville, N.C. area we were robbed. It happened in our church. That's right, in our church, while my wife and I were at the altar for the baptism of our baby. We returned to our pew and my wife whispered "where's my purse?"

I called the credit card companies, filed a police report and tried to keep it from ruining what should have been a day of joy.

Late that evening I got a call from Sears, asking if I'd run up over two thousand dollars in charges. It turned out we'd forgotten about that one card in the purse. Sears said we were covered but it was still a sickening feeling.

Three days later I got a call from the Asheville police department. We arrived at the station carrying our baby and were met by a detective who was beaming with delight, the thief had been caught. Word of our misfortune had gone through the department and there was a general sense of outrage that a couple had been robbed in church.

The chief of police even came out, and to my surprise apologized for what happened to us. The detective then returned my wife's purse, including a prayer card tucked inside it, and told us how the thief, a habitual offender who was out on parole, got nabbed.

The detective had pulled the guy over, the thief's girl friend, a prostitute, denounced her partner, showing the detective where the purse was hidden under the dashboard.

My wife and I looked at their mug shots and saw the receipts signed by them for our credit card. It was disturbing to gaze at their cold images, to see the forgeries of our signatures, to look at the picture of someone who had crept into the sanctuary of our church, saw us leave the pew with our baby, and then violated our happiness and the sacredness of the house of God by robbing us.

If what he did wasn't a hate crime, what is?

This was a man who thought nothing of smashing into someone's life, taking what wasn't his, then robbing a store of thousands of dollars of merchandise. To do this in a church to a couple having their baby baptized falls completely beyond my understanding. To add insult to injury my tax dollars are now supporting the bum if he is still in prison.

But this, according to our politically correct leaders, is not a hate crime. If anything, they most likely feel sorry for the scum. Robbing a couple in church means the poor guy was desperate, a victim of an uncaring society, who at least showed us some courtesy by committing a "non-violent" crime.

The reason I'm writing about this is the shooting incident recently at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles. The story dominated the media all week. Hate crime it's called. Sure it's a crime filled with hate. All crimes are characterized by contempt and hate. Any sicko who wanders into a crowd of kids, be they Jewish, Hindu, Christian, or Moslem and starts shooting is twisted with hate and the guy should get a ride in the sparking chair a.s.a.p.

But to call it a "Hate Crime," thereby implying that other crimes are different -- that's politically correct double-talk. Its like calling war a "police action" or civilian casualties "collateral damage." If you are the collateral casualty who gets his legs blown off in a police action it doesn't matter what its called, you are screwed.

Defining a small handful of crimes as hate crimes degrades the rest of us, the ordinary citizens who get robbed, mugged, car-jacked, raped, beaten and murdered every day of the week. It degrades us as well to see how the scum who do these things to the rest of us are often called victims of society by the same liberals who've cooked up this hate crime business. To define a few people as victims of hate crime, due to race, religion, or sexual orientation is a slap in the face to the founding principles of this nation that all citizens are equal.

Don't get me wrong. I loath what happened in Los Angeles and to the gay student in Wyoming. There is no room in a free society, or for that matter in any society for such sickness and those who did it should be punished without hesitation.

But this business about hate crime reminds me far too much of life in the days of royalty. If you killed a peasant, well you might get fined three sheep. Spit on a noble though and the state cuts your tongue off, feeds the rest of you into a meat grinder and hangs out what's left on the city wall. Is that any different than now saying that if you shoot a person from one group the federal government will execute you, but do it to someone from another group isn't so bad?

The hate crime legislation now being proposed by Clinton goes so far as to require consideration of what the perpetrator was thinking or saying.

"Die you working class, conservative white male scum," doesn't count, but say the unprintable word, or make a comment about which gender the victim sleeps with, and its off to get the big needle.

I fully agree with the desire of citizens to seek equal protection under the law, but additional protection puts all of us on the greasy slope to discrimination and the balkanizing of our country. I suspect that is indeed what many left wing liberals actually want, a system to protect their pet causes and beliefs and the hell with the rest of us who might dare to disagree.

As to this compensating for alleged past injustices, that's ridiculous. If the guy who robbed my wife had English parents should I demand a tougher penalty because I'm part Irish and my family got ripped off by Cromwell three hundred years ago?

By the way, just in closing, but perhaps most disturbing of all. The horrible crime in Los Angeles was still the top news item four days after it happened. During that same time a brave police officer was murdered in Greenville, shot in the head by some cowardly punks. Two additional police officers were injured. It was just as bloody in terms of deaths as LA.

That was buried on page three of our own local paper which had glaring headlines though out the week about the "right wing gun fanatic" in LA.

Wasn't that a hate crime too or is killing a young police officer not a politically correct crime and therefore not worthy of notice?

Hate crime? Let's just call all crimes. . .crimes and make sure the brute who does it gets the punishment he deserves.

Dr. William R. Forstchen is a professor of history at Montreat College and wrote this column originally for The Asheville (N.C.) Tribune.