[highball]

In practice, used as pandering for votes, no.

In theory, I don't know. Intent is intent, and if we are going to hold different penalties based on intent it is perfectly reasonable for society, through our elected officials, to determine what criteria are to be used.

[Bernard Marx]

I don't know specifically how intent is arrived at in law. It seems to me if someone takes after another person with a meat cleaver it's reasonable to assume intent to commit murder. But once the murder is done it defies logic to conclude that one kind of murder is "worse" than another kind. An exception might be the one mentioned in my last post where the law itself is the "victim."

I agree it's reasonable for elected officials to determine criteria, as you suggest. It's also crucial for citizens to make a big fuss when those officials exceed the limits of good sense, as they have in this matter. They are trying to eliminate prejudice. As one writer on the subject, a Jew who's also gay, says:

"But different groups will have different ideas of what constitutes “prejudice." (Is secular humanism prejudice against Christians? Is Afrocentrism prejudice against whites?) That is why eliminating prejudice is exactly what “the country" — meaning its governmental authorities — must not resolve to do. Not only is wiping out bias and hate impossible in principle, in practice "eliminating prejudice" through force of law means eliminating all but one prejudice — that of whoever is most politically powerful."

And that's where the danger I mentioned in my first post lies.

[Antoninus]

Bump.