Greater and lesser murders.

Perspectives: Some hate is better than other hate (OneNewsNow.com)

Hate crimes are crimes more dastardly than mere crime. They are special crimes defined by hate ... that is, a certain kind of hate ... depending on who you hate.

In the United States, federal prosecution is possible for hate crimes committed on the basis of a person's race, color, religion, or nation origin when engaging in a federally protected activity. To date, 45 states and the District of Columbia have statutes criminalizing various types of hate crimes; and 31 states and the District of Columbia have statutes creating a civil cause of action, in addition to the criminal penalty, for similar acts.

But that is not enough for some. As of October 2007, Congress is considering legislation that would add gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability to the list.

With all of this attention to the types of hate that might motivate crime, one would think that we have covered the worst of deeds with our modern legalese. One would think.

By definition, until now, murder has always been considered a hate crime. But soon, encoding into our law a special kind of crime defined as hate, we will have by exclusion reduced all other crimes to something less than.

Creating one class of victim that is hurt by hate, to the exclusion of other victims who are merely annoyed by hate, we have fulfilled the Orwellian prophecy that predicted the reduction of equality into something other than. All animals are created equal ... but some are more equal than others.

We have become too sophisticated to see the obvious. By legally reserving our deepest compassion for a limited set of victims, we have diminished our ability to protect one another in a civilized world where hate is called what it is regardless of who is hated.

Murder is final. It is no less painful because the law says it is the lesser, kinder, gentler murder.

The more we work to define what kinds of hate are worse than others, the more we all need to worry about being left behind in the group of people outside the circle of protection. There are no degrees of good hate and kinder murder. Hate is hate.

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