Notebook

...Ten states, Wyoming among them, have no such laws, and thoughtful people argue they are not needed...

...It is increasingly hard to imagine any effective restriction of abortion that could be enacted into law in the United States...

...While legislation itself will not change all hearts, it might send a powerful message to some hate-twisted minds...

...To shield citizens from the double-jeopardy conundrum, S. 1529 specifically excluded "duplicate punishment for substantially the same offense...

...But gambling's social costs--in ruined lives and broken families, vice, political corruption, and the subtle but real assault on our sense of work and responsibili t y - a r e becoming more apparent...

...Finally, the 1998 election was another political setback for the prolife movement...

...Yet the cumulative effect of such federal laws, the AJC points out, has enhanced deterrence, particularly in states that lack laws or do not enforce them...

...Last year in New York City, for example, violent crime fell 10 percent while antigay violence rose by 14 percent, according to the National Coalition of Antiviolence Programs (NCAVP), a gay advocacy group...

...They are acts of criminal violence--among them kidnapping, torture, and murder--but their destructive capacity stems from a motivational intensity that sets them apart...

...It was not only the sheer sadism and rancor of the crime that affected Americans, but the sense that Shepard's rights had been violated simply for being who he was...

...When a Wyoming legislator likens homosexuals to gay bulls--worthless except to be sent off to the packing plant-the likelihood of a decline in bias crimes is not improved...

...In little more than a decade the United States has gone from a nation where gambling was actively discouraged by law and public morality--and consequently confined to a single state--to the headlong embrace of virtually every kind of "gaming...

...and that federal prosecution in hate-crime cases has been used only sparingly in the past (6 percent of incidents...

...Crimes of this sort can be triggered by a victim's demeanor, color, status, ethnicity, speech, etc., which become the pretext for unleashing blind fury...

...The American Jewish Committee (AJC)--no stranger to combating crimes of hate has noted that proposed federal legislation would continue to leave responsibility for protecting citizens' rights primarily with state and local agencies...

...Yet, as Will grants, "law has the expressive function of stigmatizing particular conduct...

...Whereas the Anti-Defamation League reports that 55 percent of anti-Jewish incidents are against persons, the NCAVP offers evidence that 95 percent of violence against gays is directed at their persons...

...Among Republicans, the rise of the essentially prochoice gubernatorial wing of the party, most prominently represented by the Bush brothers and New York Governor George Pataki, signals a significant further consolidation of current abortion policy...

...Still another caveat is that such legislation might limit individuals' free speech...

...When there is an absence of federal oversight, victims may lack adequate recourse...

...There are other reasons to support federal involvement besides the fact that homosexuals suffer higher rates of violent hate crime than any other group...

...In promoting their own state lotteries as a way to raise revenue without raising taxes, state governments bear a large responsibility for this...

...PATRICK JORDAN Commonweal 7 November20, 1998...

...Law sends a powerful and effective message that society will not tolerate certain acts...

...As Wilson Carey McWilliams reminds us, Americans continue to vote for divided government and remain deeply skeptical of any politics that might articulate some larger "vision" of how we should order our lives together as a people...

...But whereas the rate of violent crime in general has been falling nationally, violence against gays, lesbians, and transsexuals has been on the rise...

...Those who question the legality and wisdom of hate-crime legislation, such as columnist George Will, contend that present statutes are sufficient to prosecute hate-motivated crimes, and that to codify "an ever-more elaborate structure of identity politics" will not only prove costly but will enhance divisiveness...

...Denied a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and facing a razor-thin majority in the House, the Republicans are now expected to move "'expeditiously" on impeachment hearings...

...In fact, Matthew Shepard's father, Dennis Shepard, warned after his son's death that legislators should not rush to pass "all kinds of new hate-crime laws...

...Bias-crime laws are less about punishment than about deterrence...

...Governing from the "vital center" is a time-honored American tradition--as well as a clich6...

...A further consideration concerns local and state officials who fail to assure citizens' rights...

...But it should shake our indifference and lead to actions that reduce such crimes...

...The educational and organizational efforts that proved so effective in Michigan, including those by the state's Catholic bishops, need to be emulated...

...Hate-motivated crimes have their own pedigree, their own smell...

...Given good economic times and limited foreign entanglements, this lack of consensus may suffice for the time being...

...Sensing the potential for abuse, Michigan voters defeated a proposal that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide, leaving Oregon the only place where so-called mercy killing is legal...

...Proponents of the proposed Hate-Crimes Prevention Act of 1998 (S...

...Until the face of the prolife movement is softened and its language becomes less condemnatory and more persuasive, no significant change in the law or decrease in the the number of abortions is likely...

...Worse, according to the NCAVP, incidents of antigay abuse by the police themselves jumped nationally from 266 in 1996 to 468 last year...

...In many respects, the prolife movement, especially those who resort to inflammatory rhetoric and tactics, are responsible for this ongoing political failure...

...One is that violence against gays is more often directed at their persons than at their property...

...reports that 12 percent of hate crimes in 1996 had to do with sexual orientation, and the Southern Poverty Law Center calculates that bias attacks against gays and lesbians are more than twice as likely as similarly motivated attacks on African-Americans, more than six times as likely as those directed at Jews and Hispanics...

...In Wyoming, after all, the death penalty is in force for murder, and criminals should be punished for their deeds, not their beliefs...

...A further nineteen have laws that cover most of the above, but not sexual orientation, even though the F.B.I...

...Most disturbing, voters in Washington state overwhelmingly defeated a referendum that would have outlawed the most indefensible of third-trimester abortions...

...CALL HATERS TO ACCOUNT A case for bias-crime laws he brutal murder last month of Matthew Shepard--the twenty-one-year-old gay college student in Wyoming who was beaten and tied to a cross-like fence to die---struck at the conscience of the nation...

...When James Byrd, Jr., a disabled African-American, was dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas, last June, every reflective American knew instinctively that this crime was motivated by a particular loathing born of prejudice...

...Twenty-one states have laws that increase the penalties for hate crimes related to race, religion, color, national origin, and sexual orientation...

...and of those who actually managed to file, almost half said they had been treated indifferently or with hostility...

...The effort to use the law to restrict abortion looks more and more like a dead end...

...Equally disturbing is the way many Democratic candidates crudely caricatured and exploited the prolife positions of their Republican opponents...

...But the spectacle of the Republicans scrambling to find "friendlier faces," and Clinton's history of backing away from a fight whenever his polling so dictates, raises the question of whether either party can distinguish between governing from the middle and simple political expediency...

...Or so goes the conventional wisdom...

...Voters in California, endorsing an indeflectable national trend, approved an expansion of casino gambling...

...A majority of Americans are clearly tired of the endless rancor surrounding abortion, and eager to depoliticize the issue...

...The murder of Matthew Shepard was not the first and will not be the last crime of its kind...

...1529) argue that while many local jurisdictions have attempted to respond to hate-motivated violence, the problem is sufficiently serious and widespread to warrant federal intervention...

...Another reason to support such legislation is the matter of who will protect victims when local enforcement agencies are themselves biased...

...In 1997, only 24 percent of antigay incidents tracked nationally by the NCAVP were reported to the police (half the percentage-rate for reporting violent crime in general) because gays feared going to the authorities...

...Especially egregious were Charles Schumer's cynical manipulation of the issue in New York and Senator Barbara Boxer's outright distortion of her opponent's views in California...

...Referenda in the states on physician-assisted suicide, gambling, and abortion also produced mixed results...

...Be sure," he said, "you're not taking away any rights of others...

...Others argue that such statutes diminish the constitutional protection against double jeopardy for the same crime...

...they undermine the very notion of equality...

...Whether the new House Republican leadership will be able to finesse the impeachment process now set in motion remains to be seen...

...Assisted suicide is an issue that will continue to be decided on a state-by-state basis...

...For potential victims, the threat Commonweal 6 November20,1998 of such violence is a constant source of vulnerability, unease, fear, even terror...

...Brian Levin of Stockton College's Center on Hate and Extremism notes that a Boston statute cut hate crimes by two-thirds...

...Of those gays who did try to file, 12 percent stated that the local police refused to register their complaints...

...These violent acts of bigotry demand forceful and consistent redress, for they strike at the heart of the solidarity that binds society together...