When It’s 1 in 6, It’s Not Special Rights

Thanks to the Human Rights Campaign and the True Colors Tour for this video.

Just added: Alaina Alexander’s tribute to those who have died of homophobic violence.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 7:13 pm and is filed under activist issues, current events, gay issues, political issues, videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “When It’s 1 in 6, It’s Not Special Rights”

eleka nahmen Says:
June 21st, 2007 at 6:18 am
Now, if 25,000 other people in Salt Lake would just link it on their blogs and actually act, we’d practically give the senators a mandate..
Jér Says:
June 21st, 2007 at 11:16 am
I’m not sure any number of activists could convince Hatch or Bennett to care about gay people. Of the Utah’s five congressional representatives, Matheson is the only one who didn’t get a score of zero from the HRC this last year, and his score has dropped by a third for the past two scorecards. Not a very good showing for a Democrat.

But you’re right—if the people of Utah actually came out and showed their support for these gay-friendly measures, our representatives would face the choice of either changing their minds or being voted out of office. The trick is really to get Utahns to change their homophobic ways.
chosha Says:
June 21st, 2007 at 7:34 pm
The issue (IMO) is not whether people accept homosexuality or care about gay rights. The point is to make law reflect the fact that while everyone has the right (in a legal sense) to hate, they do not have the right to incite hatred or commit hateful acts (hate crimes).

In other words, the crucial purpose of this Bill is not to eradicate homophobia (or racism, or religious intolerance) but rather to make it clear to hate criminals that we will not tolerate their violence towards other human beings – that NOTHING (no perceived evil or inferiority, no fear or hatred, no difference of race, or orientation, or lifestyle) justifies their violent act.

Hatch or Bennett, or whoever else is influential in passing this legislation, don’t need to be convinced to care about gay people. They need to be convinced to care about people, period. We already have this kind of legislation in Australia, and it’s had some positive effects. I hope that the same happens in the US.
Jér Says:
June 21st, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Well, in theory you’re correct, Chosha—that is, hate crimes legislation should apply to all hate crimes, no matter what kind, because of the uniquely damaging effect this kind of violence has on society. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works, at least not here in the United States, and definitely not in Utah. These kinds of bills are blocked specifically because the conservative/religious/bigoted legislators are afraid of sending the message to their conservative/religious/bigoted constituents that crimes against certain populations (read: gay, transgender, black, Jewish, whatever) ought to be classified as hate crimes instead of “God’s judgment against the wicked,” or “gay-panic-motivated self defense” or “a skirmish in the war for racial purity” or what-have-you. Utah has one of the most limited hate-crimes laws imaginable for that very reason.

You can find the Utah hate-crime laws on the Utah State Legislature database.

You can read the bill in question on the Library of Congress website.

John Ireland wrote a pretty good overview article on the state of hate-crime legislation in the U.S. right now, which you can read on the In These Times site.