The piece Igneococcus linked seemed pretty even handed in the reporting to me. I think that we are getting somewhere?
No debate seems to be losing. Which is good.
We NEED to talk about this stuff. And get the right protections in place for the right people while maintaining free speech and etc.
The fact that the bit I just wrote above is seen as inflammatory etc is just bonkers but that is where we've got to.
...
The hate crime laws were brought in for good reason. The intent was good and for a while they were put to (I'm guessing) reasonable use. The omission of sex as a characteristic was always very telling. But I had no issues with eg a man getting beaten up on his way home from a gay club to a volley of homophobic abuse, or a Jewish man being kicked in with a load of anti Semitic abuse, or a black woman being clobbered with a load a racist abuse, having a HATE element as an aggravating circumstance to the crime of gbh etc.
That is what it was meant for.
How we got here. I have no idea. The hate was supposed to be an additional component to a crime committed. Not a crime in itself.
So again. While we have the police doing stop and search of black people with abandon, still. While synagogues still have to have security guards (around here) or keep their locations secret. And while "gay' is still used amongst young children as a put down, and boys and girls are still vilified in some schools by their classmates if they are perceived to be gay or lesbian up to and including violence.
What exactly is the point? It has changed nothing. It was a good idea. And yet again I have to say. Sadly as a nicey lefty type woman. It's failed in what it was created for. It's being misused.
This thing in Scotland which is also proposed in England is terrifying.
Get rid of the whole lot. Scrap it all.
The court procedure should take into account motivation, vulnerability. It always did.
The omission of women was always an egregious gap.
Bin it.
And this is what the TRAs have done. Led life long nicey lefty women who do all the charity stuff and whatnot. To say. Fuck this. Just no. No more automatic support for certain political parties or unions etc. They never looked after women anyway. We put up with it. But this is just. Too much.