CRIMINALS PUNISHED WITHOUT HATE-CRIME LAWS

The current fad of hate-crime laws got a boost recently from President Clinton. In the finest tradition of "I feel your pain," the president said he wants to expand federal laws to cover more special groups who are victims of crimes.

Currently, federal hate-crime laws cover race, ethnicity and religion-based crimes. Clinton wants Congress to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999, which would add sexual orientation, gender and disability to the list.

Hate-crime laws are intended to make penalties more severe if victims of crimes such as assault or murder are members of a protected class. Many states also have a smorgasbord of hate-crime laws.

In most cases, hate-crime laws serve mainly to assuage certain groups of people, such as homosexuals, who have clout in the political arena. Some politicians score points by supporting and voting in favor of hate-crime laws. Legislators, both state and federal, who oppose hate-crime laws for any reason tend to be targeted by special groups seeking special status in criminal statutes.

There are good reasons to question the need for hate-crime laws. Proponents would have you believe that the special protection is needed in order to make sure those who commit crimes against special groups are properly punished. This argument makes it sound like a murderer of someone who isn't in a protected class would somehow be treated differently than the killer whose deed was motivated by the ethnic background of the victim.

Recently, Jane Pauley of NBC's "Dateline" reported on a murder victim, in a small Alabama town, whose own parents didn't know he was a homosexual. The point of the report, of course, was to play up the fact that he was the victim of a hate crime. Looking straight into the camera, Pauley ended her report by telling viewers that Alabama has no hate-crime law to protect homosexuals.

What? Charges were filed in that case. There will be a trial. If a guilty verdict is forthcoming, there will be a sentencing. Surely even Alabama prosecutors, juries and judges think murder is deserving of punishment.

Then why is it necessary to have the special protection of a hate-crime law?

President Clinton's pitch for wider hate-crime protection on the federal level relied on an ominous comparison. The United States, Clinton said, is as vulnerable as Kosovo to old, even primitive hatreds.

So now the president thinks the centuries-old ethnic and religious hatred in Yugoslavia and crimes against protected groups of American citizens are on a par?

There's a big difference here. The United States has two centuries of rule by law under its belt. Yugoslavia has laws, but chaotic rule. To lump the two together is as outlandish as the Clinton administration's comparison of the Yugoslav president to Hitler.