The Factors in Man’s Beating in Laguna
- Share via
Why all the effort to decide whether a particular crime, such as the beating of a man on the beach in Laguna Beach, should be classified as a “hate crime”? The perpetrator of the crime should be punished for the actions he took, not the motivation.
Beating a person and defacing a person’s property are crimes because of the actions involved, not because of the thoughts behind those actions. The victim’s suffering is the same whether the motive is hatred of gays, robbery or dislike of the victim’s shirt color.
To designate certain motivations as more heinous than others is to belittle the suffering of the victims of crimes that do not have the special motivations.
To maintain a civilized society, while at the same time avoiding a police state that monitors and judges our thoughts, we should punish criminals for what they do, and not for what they think.
We need to stop being concerned with whether a crime is a “hate crime.”
DAVID J. ARTHUR
Costa Mesa
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
