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Level the playing field
By Gordie Loewen/Guest Column
 Gordie Loewen
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Anybody that thinks about it for more than 30 seconds should come to the conclusion that any bias motivated offense or hate crime is wrong. We already have enough problems in the world without people perpetuating violence to further their small-minded, bigoted views. Unfortunately, though, we have to deal with these hate-crimes. So, we have laws that provide additional penalties for people committing criminal acts for bigoted purposes.
These hate-crime laws are, probably, the most equitable things to come out of our judicial system since the constitutional right to legal council. In our penal system, punishments for crimes are supposed to act as a deterrent to would-be offenders. Due to the volume and the atrocity of crimes committed based on a person's race, religion, creed, or sexual orientation, legislators have decided that these would-be offenders need a little bit extra deterrent to their horrible offenses.
The laws only seek to level the playing field. Many violent offenders currently in our penal system are "rehabilitated" due to the deterrent of the penalties that they have faced in the past. Unfortunately, those among us that would lynch someone simple for having the wrong color skin are so motivated by hate that rehabilitation is often difficult or impossible.
Therefore, additional penalties are designed not only to encourage their reform but to keep them in the penal system for as long as possible. This way, at the very least, we keep them from re-offending for as long as possible.
Another underlying principle of our judicial system is Mens Rea. The idea here is that all criminal offenses rest in the offender's intent to offend. In other words, you are only guilty of a crime if your actions show that you intended to commit that crime.
This is why our judicial system recognizes not only murder but also accidental shootings, homicide in self defense, and hate-crimes.
The only idea that you need to take away here is that laws like these hate-crime laws are not only completely in-line with our judicial principles, but are simply the necessary educational tactics that our society needs to stand up and say that things like racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious persecution are not acceptable!
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