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Why Isn’t Rape a ‘Hate Crime?’ 6/5/2002 The following is an excerpt from Senator Kennedy’s remarks during a May 11, 1999 Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing on the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (hate crimes) bill, a vote on which is imminent in the full Senate.
We thought it instructive to include an excerpt, with an excerpted reaction from Culture and Family Institute Director Robert Knight, who testified during the same hearing.
Senator Kennedy: “What we’re really talking about are these types of crime that are so horrific in terms of the nature, are really not just directed at an individual, but really are directed at a whole community, and really the society.
“We’re having, in the case of, as I understand it, in rape you obviously have to have the connection in terms of interstate commerce. You could have the nexus, but then you have to be able to show the gender animus that is out there.
“So, this doesn’t apply to every rape case. You’ve got to be able to demonstrate that this is a mind set that individuals, in terms of individuals who are going to have, on the basis of race or in terms of sexual orientation or in terms of whatever these criteria, that, this was described earlier in an earlier comment today as sort of domestic, as a modern lynching of a fellow American citizen. And that’s the kind of thing that we’re talking about, aren’t we?”
In later testimony at the same hearing, Knight, then-director of Cultural Studies at the Family Research Council, gave a critical analysis of the hate crimes bill, and also addressed Senator Kennedy’s remarks. Here is an excerpt:
“I’m amazed at Senator Kennedy. He’s not here to defend his remark. But, he said that — and I think I’m correct in saying this — he said that not every rape involves gender animus.
“…I cannot imagine, if a women were here who had been raped, she could take the Senator seriously. Every rape is a crime against all women. It’s a crime against the community. It sends communities into sheer panic. When a child is snatched and abducted, and molested … that’s a crime against the whole community. Yet, that wouldn’t be covered under this.
“The whole concept of hate crimes is flawed. It sets up special classes of victims afforded a higher level of government protection than others victimized by similar crimes. That violates the concept of equal protection. It politicizes criminal prosecutions.”
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