The Cincinnati Enquirer |
Editorial Page
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Oct. 22, 1998 |
 WASHINGTON - You may have wondered where Ellen DeGeneres has been lately. I can tell you where she was last week. She turned up at a rally one evening on the U.S. Capitol grounds, denouncing the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old Wyoming college student, and angrily demanding that Congress expand the Federal Hate Crimes Protection Act to include crimes based on sexual orientation. (Mr. Shepard, of course, was homosexual, and it is believed that the two men accused of killing him, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, were motivated by their knowledge of that fact.)
I was struck by Ellen DeGeneres’s evident rage: At the murder, which has garnered nationwide publicity, and at the prejudice that impels such acts. Rage about Mr. Shepard’s killing is understandable, off course; it was a grisly and despicable act. But rage about hatred seems somehow paradoxical. Miss DeGeneres, along with other celebrities in attendance at the Capitol, seems to thing that she lives in a particularly intolerant country, and clings to the belief that bias and bigotry may be cured by legislation.
In any case, she is in fast company. President Clinton took the occasion of Mr. Shepard’s killing to demand that sexual orientation be added to the roster of categories covered by federal hate-crime laws. And journalists have done their part as well. Not only have many joined Bill Clinton and Ellen DeGeneres in demanding remedial legislation, but Frank Richard of The New York Times seems to believe that Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council is responsible for Matthew Shepard’s death. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post expressed his view that Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi is the guilty party. I’ll stick with Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinley. I doubt that either Mr. Henderson or Mr. McKinley could identify Trent Lott and Gary Bauer, just as I suspect they would not have been deterred in their alleged rampage by the knowledge that sexual orientation might be covered by the Federal Hate Crimes Protection Act. |
Better yet, here’s a challenge: My view is that, if Mr. Henderson and Mr. McKinley should be found guilty of the crime with which they are charged (first-degree murder), they ought to be executed, as Wyoming law permits. I would bet that if the two men were convicted by Wyoming, and then charged with committing a hate crime under federal law, none of the people demanding the adoption of such a measure would endorse capital punishment for them.
Which brings us back to the subject of that rally on Capitol Hill. Much has been made of the fact that Wyoming does not have a hate-crime law, as if the absence of such a measure minimizes Matthew Shepard’s killing in the eyes of the state. But the fact is that Wyoming, along with the other 49 states, possesses a criminal statute that includes murder. Far from condoning the impulse that drove Aaron McKinley and Russell Henderson to act, the criminal laws of Wyoming prescribe death as punishment if they should be convicted of killing Matthew Shepard. Federal "hate-crime" provisions ought to be understood for what they are: A political gesture in the direction of certain political constituencies. Yet they are more than that, for if the Clinton administration has proven anything, it has shown that it is prepared to go to considerable lengths to erode civil liberties in the interests of demographics. Indeed, "hate-crime" statutes have already been invoked in civil cases in which defendants were ranged against favored minorities. That is to say, if we follow the logic of Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Clinton, you could find yourself in a legal skirmish with a gay plaintiff - perhaps a property dispute - in which the law would presume that your action was grounded in bias against homosexuals. While it is correct to complain that hate-crime laws are largely feel-good gestures, they may also be used to punish and intimidate you for your beliefs, or what some prosecutor asserts are your beliefs. Not only do state criminal statutes already cover the terrible offense committed against Matthew Shepard, they offer a solution that is significantly more effective than hate-crime legislation. We embark on a dangerous course when private thoughts and attitudes are punishable under law, for given the choice between votes and civil liberties, politicians will endorse their supporters every time. Would the killing of Matthew Shepard have been any less heinous if he had been butchered for his money, or killed because he happened to tilt his hat in a certain way? Of course not.
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I suspect that Ellen DeGeneres’s mood might have more to do with Ellen DeGeneres than Matthew Shepard: She seems to have grasped the unhappy fact that her days as a television comedienne are over, and her career as a furious gay activist has begun. She may have convinced herself that manning the barricades is more rewarding than starring in a TV sitcom, but it is certainly less remunerative.