Say you're a Muslim who doesn't like what someone has said about you or other Muslims in public. What do you do? How about filing a libel lawsuit? It's the done thing nowadays, regardless of the merits of each case.
And what about this insane case in which a New Yorker at Pace University was arrested and charged with a hate crime for throwing a couple of Korans in the toilet? Is it now a violation of the law in New York City to destroy or disrespect a book? I don't care if it's the Bible, the Baghavad Gita or "Valley of the Dolls," it cannot possibly be a crime to throw a book that belongs to you into the toilet. When Sinead O'Connor tore up a photograph of the Pope on national television, what she did was insulting, provocative, offensive and immoral. But I do not want to live in a world in which doing that sort of thing is a criminal offense. I certainly hope the ACLU has come to the defense of the Koran-desecrating student. I condemn what he did, but defend his right to do it.
Christopher Hitchens is quite right:
The Pace University incident becomes even more ludicrous and sinister when it is recalled that Islamists are the current leaders in the global book-burning competition. After the rumor of a Quran down the toilet in Guantanamo was irresponsibly spread, a mob in Afghanistan burned down an ancient library that (as President Hamid Karzai pointed out dryly) contained several ancient copies of the same book. Not content with igniting copies of The Satanic Verses, Islamist lynch parties demanded the burning of its author as well. Many distinguished authors, Muslim and non-Muslim, are dead or in hiding because of the words they have put on pages concerning the unbelievable claims of Islam. And it is to appease such a spirit of persecution and intolerance that a student in New York City has been arrested for an expression, however vulgar, of an opinion.This has to stop, and it has to stop right now.
UPDATE: A reader writes with a correction:
I was very glad to see your post on Islamic censorship efforts. I was very glad indeed, as this needs more coverage; however, I noticed that your post stated “it cannot possibly be a crime to throw a book that belongs to you into the toilet.” This implies that the book thrown in the toilet belonged to the man who threw it there. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The book was the property of Pace University. In this case, however, the hate crimes statute in NY has elevated what would be a very minor misdemeanor vandalism charge to two separate felony counts. It’s still not proper for this to be a felony, but the case is somewhat less sympathetic than your post would indicate.
Thanks for that, reader. Again, we see the idiocy of the very concept of hate crimes, in which a crime is deemed worse -- in this case, dramatically worse -- because of the intent of the criminal.
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I suppose I agree with Rod that this Pace U. jerk has to be tolerated and should not be charged.
The notion of designated hate crimes are a problem because they are somewhat subjective. This is a bit like knowledge crimes, getting closed to a Gestapo police state.
Normally, I'm as ready as any righty to join in the outrage over this sort of thing, but then I read the story and my outrage died before it got started. Here's the thing. It is one thing to make a statement about a group of people generally and quite another to make a statement about a particular group of people specifically. For example, the "Piss Christ" was awful, but it was obviously intended as a statement about Christianity in general. However, if someone had peed in a jar, put a crucifix in it and left it on the alter at the school chapel before mass along with putting graffitti on a Catholic leader's car on campus and passing out fliers defaming Catholics on campus, the issue wouldn't be whether it was a crime to put a religious symbol into a jar of pee, but that someone was deliberately targeting a particular group of people (as opposed to just the institution of the church) for harrassment and intimidation. It sounds like this is just the sort of thing which was going on at Pace U. This guy wasn't just making a political or religious statement, he appeared to be part of an ongoing series of activities meant to intimidate Muslims on campus.
Given the context, claiming that what he did was vandelism and not a hate crime seems to me to be much like claiming that a stalker should be charged for trespassing rather than stalking.
I think that the idea of hate crimes can certainly be abused and that we need to take a serious look at how they are applied in practice and decide if the dangers out weigh the need to express society's strong disapproval of bigotry through legal means. However, the idea that hate crimes laws involve mind reading or are an abberation from our normal approach to the law just isn't true. For example, intent is what seperates trespassing from stalking. And many others have pointed out that intent is exactly what seperates first, second, and third degree murder. This hardly means that we value the life of the victem of third degree murder less than the life of the victem of first degree murder. It's that we recognize that intent has bearing on culpability and appropriate punishment for crimes which while having exactly the same result have differing motivations.
Anyways, if anyone wants to find an example of abuse of hate crime laws or of government officials cow-towing to mulsim oversensitivities, they should keep on looking. I just don't see how this case fits the bill.
Nameless wrote:
>>>>>>>Sinead O'Connor was not protesting anything of the sort at that time, prior to the media storm of 2002. If there is a "colossal number" of horrific crimes here, it is only because there is a "colossal size" to the Institution we call the Catholic Church.
Jason now writes:
Quite, quite mistaken about O'Connor's protest. She ripped-up the photo of Pope John Paul II in October 1992 (on Saturday Night Live) immediately after and specifically in protest of an enormous scandal that had just then exploded, revealing years of child molestation & Catholic hierarchical cover-ups that had been taking place in her native Ireland. Before she ripped the photo, she sang an a capella version of Bob Marley's 'War,' in which she specifically changed the lyrics, repeating: "Child abuse, yeah. Child abuse, yeah..."
The singer explained *very* succinctly to the press why she did what she did during the following day(s), but few cared about her explanation, so sensational was the media frenzy. Had she been Bob Dylan, or Johnny Cash, or John Lennon (rather than a tiny Irishwoman), I believe the tone of response would have been much different.
Even so, she stuck to her reasons and the contemporaneous scandal of the Church in Ireland presaged (in very creepy fashion), the wholesale eruption of similar scandals in the Catholic Church a few years later (NOT in 2002!), but in the late '90s, in places like Santa Rosa, CA, etc. Of course, only a few weeks ago, the Los Angeles diocese shelled out 600 Million(!)in a settlement so that Cardinal Mahoney could avoid testifying at trial. 2 BILLION dollars have already been paid in USA settlements or "hush-funds," with hundreds more cases pending.
"Weigh it up." O'Connor was right, though brazen. This is a peculiarly Roman Catholic institutional problem related to the forced celibacy of its male clergy and the kind of individuals that such a "position" can attract...and then subsequently "hide and protect" within the very tightly controlled system.
Again, one bald woman's shred of a photo does not ever begin to equal the ruined lives, lies, and betrayal effected by this particular institution. And the institution *is* unquestionably "responsible" (the courts of law have proved it, though it hardly needs much proving). The Catholic Church's "colossal" size does not, in any way, excuse it from dealing with such a chillingly pervasive, systemic "problem."
In a case like this, I champion not only O'Connor's prescient, free-speech protest, but also her method. Shocking, but perhaps people should have heeded such a shock in order to prepare them for the REAL shock(s) to come. I chastise the media, the press, and the rest of the world for not bothering to listen to her actual reasons when they obviously should have done so.
actually, people who vandalize university library books should get a BIG fine. Same for people who haul down public flags and burn them, as opposed to buying your own and having your way with it. If you're going to be a jackass, have the decency to do so with your own property. A big fine will help teach that lesson.
We are just going to have to put up with the Sinead O'Connors, Salmon Rusdies, and jack-ass Pace students.
People like this are looking for attention. If they step too far out of line with the objective law, I say they answer for it.
But we need to encourage civil behaviour.
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