Published in Liberty Magazine – March / April 2008
On July 1, 2007, Satendar Singh, a 26-year-old Sikh American was attacked by a group of six men while enjoying an early Independence Day picnic with friends at a park in Folsom, California. According to news reports, the attackers noticed that Singh was dancing with both men and women and did not appear to have a female date. The attackers began hurling racist and anti-gay invectives.
When Singh and his group attempted to leave, the attackers blocked Singh’s path and one of them struck Singh in the head. Singh fell to the ground unconscious, his head bleeding profusely. On July 5 his life support was removed. Two men with alleged ties to an extremist “Christian” group are standing trial, and some believe that they were spurred on to an act of violence by the rhetoric of the group.
The U.S. Department of Justice defines a “hate crime” as “an offense motivated by hatred against a victim based on his or her race, religion, sexual orientation, handicap, ethnicity, or national origin.” The definition may be simple, but it is difficult to determine whether the evidence of hatred is actually related to the crime or is instead a protected form of expression.
Read the full article at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/view/710