Thursday, March 29, 2012

Rebuttal Speech, UAA's Brett Frazer, 5 minutes

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. (Orwell). Michael said hate crime is morally worse.

Imagine two crimes.
One man rapes women because he is a misogynist. This would be a hate crime.
Another man is sex-starved so he drugs college students and rapes them.

In the first case, that's worse because we don't like misogynists.

Distinction between discrimation and hate crime. An additional penalty for a crime. Discrimination IS a crime. You still go to jail for murder, for rape. But if it is a hate crime, you get an additional penalty because we don't like you. That's absurd.

Take the Matthew Shepherd case. That same day, a 15-year-old was killed by her boyfriend because she refused to have an abortion. An 8-year-old was also killed in a separate incident. But the media focused on Shepherd, while the 8-year-old girl and the 15-year-old girl were forgotten because Matthew Shepherd was considered a hate crime. We feel more sympathy to you because that crime was something we do not like. That is inappropriate in secular society.

What is a hate crime? Whatever the local community decides it is. We are a nation of laws, not men.

What is gov't role in racism and hate crime? We create a justice system that penalizes crime, not opinion. Judge all equally due to their heinous acts. Native woman assaulted in street is an argument for more police in that neighborhood, not for hate crime penalties.

Courtrooms are sanctuaries of justice, insulated from the polarizing nature of politics.

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