Letter: Hate crimes

A crime against a person is simply an act; the punishment is usually adjusted to reflect the intent of the perpetrator (thus, the distinction between murder and manslaughter), and, to some extent, the degree of damage to the victim.

To add motive to the equation is to make the thought part of the crime, a first step on the road to criminalising the thought itself. Already the expression of some thoughts is criminal ("hate speech") and the only obstacle to establishing statutes against the thinking of such thoughts (thoughtcrime) is the technical difficulty of reading a person's mind (although research in this area is showing some promise).

We are all supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law and so to define certain groups as deserving special protection is to make some of us more equal than others.

For an organisation to support this view while calling itself the Equality Network (Letters, 2 October) is pure doublethink.

Orwell intended 1984 and Animal Farm to be warnings. They are turning out to be prophetic.

Anthony Robson

St John's Place

Perth

May I ask (the Equality Network's] Tim Hopkins these questions? Was Peter Tobin's murder of Angelika Kluk in 2006 a hate crime? Was Raoul Moat guilty of a hate crime for murdering his girlfriend's new lover earlier this year? Was homosexual Dennis Nilsen, who murdered 12 young men at his home in Muswell Hill, north London, guilty of hate crimes?

Murder classifications should be equal before the law, not favouring one social group over another. First, second and third degree categories should apply to everyone equally. Is the life of a heterosexual worth less than the life of a homosexual?

"Equality Network" is a misnomer.

(Rev Dr) Robert Anderson

Blackburn & Seafield Church

MacDonald Gardens

Blackburn, West Lothian