Of course, by removing the list, “hate crime” becomes very vague and its unlikely that it would be applied successfully very often. I don’t believe for a minute that Evan’s removed the list to be more inclusive. He removed the list because he hates the kinds of people who are on it.

Litvack, however, says Evans’ bill is unworkably vague. “What isn’t excluded? What isn’t a hate crime? Everything’s a hate crime. How is that going to be enforceable?” he asked.

From Utah Politics - The Salt Lake Tribune
Referenced Wed Jan 28 2004 09:55:59 GMT-0700

Now, I’ve never quite understood the logic behind a hate crimes bill. I figure that if someone commits a crime, we ought to lock them away for a long time regardless of their motive. Nevertheless, I also understand the comfort and sense of moral purpose that drives its proponents.

What I don’t understand is the seemingly knee-jerk opposition of our elected Republicans. I consider myself a good Republican and I can find nothing in my moral make-up or political philosophy that would cause me to oppose hate-crimes legislation. Who, after all, are we protecting it by opposing it? Hate-filled criminals. Do Sen. Evans and other Republicans really believe their constituency is filled with people who are sympathetic to criminals? No, what they believe is that their constituency is filled with people who are so dumb that they can’t see past the fact that someone is gay and find the human being.

I believe that the gay-lesbian lifestyle erodes families and hurts society, but I think we’ll go down the path to hell much more quickly by countenancing a society in which we let people hurt them because they hate them. That is nothing short of terrorism and if we think its wrong when people kill innocents because they’re American, we ought to be just as shocked when someone kills innocents because they’re gay.