Utah needs hate-crimes law

Many political observers declared Rep. David Litvack's hate crimes legislation dead on arrival. Unfortunately, their predictions were accurate. This time, HB68, which would have increased the penalties for those who commit bias crimes, was killed by the House Judiciary Committee.

The intent of Litvack's bill was to provide broader protection to all people vulnerable to attack because of their race, religion, age, ancestry, disability, sexual orientation, gender and national origin, the deal killer has been "sexual orientation." Some people fear that extending gays and lesbians the same legal protections from hate crimes as any other group on the list might be a slippery slope toward other rights and privileges.

Come now.

Utah policymakers have made their position on marriage and the adoption of children in state custody by gay couples abundantly clear. Gays and lesbians can do neither under Utah law and administrative rule. Given that, it's hard to accept the slippery slope argument.

In the most basic sense, Litvack has been seeking a constitutional tool for prosecutors and other law enforcers to use when someone commits a bias crime. Prosecutors have said the more specific the language in the bill, the more defensible it would be. The list of groups in Litvack's bill was derived from the federal hate crimes act and statistics gathered in Utah since 1996.

While people will, obviously, disagree about issue of gay marriage and adoption, presumably very few people would condone violence in the name of hate. Anyone who believes otherwise makes the strongest case possible for the need for enhancements to Utah's hate crimes bill.

The fate of Sen. James Evans' hate crime amendments, SB41, remains to be seen. We had urged a compromise between the Evans and Litvack bills. It surely should have been possible to draft a bill that addressed Evans' concern, which is that a list could possibly exclude someone, and Litvack's worry that the bill needs to be specific in order to be an effective law-enforcement tool. And this could have been done in a way that would withstand legal challenges.

Unfortunately, no compromise took place and Utah's hate crime laws will be left as they are, barring some new developments.

The prognosticators were correct that hate crimes legislation was a risky proposition in an election year. Still, Utah needs to be proactive about this issue and address it before a brutal crime takes place in the name of hate and prosecutors are limited by the anemic laws now on the books.