Define “hate crime,” Debbie
Ah, it’s good to be back and be able to count on Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball) to give a nonsensical remark for everybody to jump on. In testimony regarding hate crimes, Riddle compared the hate crime murder of a young man in her district the taunts her red-headed grandchild suffers.
I bet you fellow red heads didn’t know that you were a protected class, did you?
Can’t we raise the level of discourse on hate crimes so that we can have meaningful and purposeful conversations that are productive? I just don’t understand why it is so hard to
recognize that the more we play down the fact that homophobia is just as bad as racism we do a disservice to all of those young men and women that have paid the price of homophobia with their lives. It’s an embarrassment and a shame that there isn’t more moral outrage at these crimes. Whether Riddle was just not eloquent in her remarks or whether she really thinks any teasing or taunts in the schoolyard are equivalent to being brutally murdered just because you are different isn’t the point. The point is I’m sick and tired of people treating the murder of people because they are gay as anything other than a disgusting cause of great shame in this country.
Texas Department of Public Safety statistics report on hate crimes shows a slight decline in the reported number of hate crimes. I’m wondering if the number of these crimes actually
declined or are the number of agencies willing to categorize the crimes as hate crimes declined. Sexual orientation remains the second most common target for hate crimes, race being the first.
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