Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick signs TG rights bill into law

[BiBoyinBeantown]

Hooray!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1219121.html

The new law makes Mass. the 16th state to recognize transgendered people as a protected class.

[Stavros]

Massachusetts officially became the 16th state to treat transgender citizens as a protected class today as Governor Deval Patrick hosted a ceremonial signing of the groundbreaking rights bill.
As Colorlines is reporting, the law legally protects transgender individuals from discrimination in housing, education, employment and credit, in addition to providing additional civil rights and protections from hate crimes.

What an odd choice of language, its like ranking transgendered people along with the Beaver or the Snail Darter -if citizens of the USA have equal rights, all citizens have them -isn't this covered by anti-discriminatory legislation anyway? Don't understand it.

[fred41]

Massachusetts officially became the 16th state to treat transgender citizens as a protected class today as Governor Deval Patrick hosted a ceremonial signing of the groundbreaking rights bill.
As Colorlines is reporting, the law legally protects transgender individuals from discrimination in housing, education, employment and credit, in addition to providing additional civil rights and protections from hate crimes.

What an odd choice of language, its like ranking transgendered people along with the Beaver or the Snail Darter -if citizens of the USA have equal rights, all citizens have them -isn't this covered by anti-discriminatory legislation anyway? Don't understand it.

Stavros, others have also brought this issue up before ...often in regards to hate crime laws. It's one of those debates that will never quite end. In regards to hate crime laws, usually extra punishment is handed out (often a lot more) - which proponents will argue is a good thing because it will act as a deterrent...which of course is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove.. They do however create a feeling of satisfaction in the vengeance department.

As far as anti discrimination laws heaped on top of anti discrimination laws...we've probably gotten to the point where it becomes necessary to include everything specifically ad nauseum...blanket laws are never seem to be good enough anymore. Often, this is literally true: remember the running joke- "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is..." ? Well that is no longer a joke in this country. As it has been frequently pointed out, we've become a nation of lawyers here in the U.S....for better or worse, depending upon your viewpoint.

[trish]

Fred is right that probably the most popular argument for identifying some crimes as “hate-crimes” and meting out separate punishments for them is the argument from deterrence. If that were the only argument I would probably side with the conservatives on the issue. I take their argument to be something like: if there’s already a law against assault, why have a separate law against sexual assault? Just enforce the law that’s already on the books.

What sways me is a third argument. Certain assaults have more victims than just the obvious victim. For example, when a strangler is loose in a city and he’s strangling just women the primary victims are the unfortunate dead. But you have to know that every woman (and her family) in town is afraid. It’s not only prostitutes who work the night shift. Banks hire men and women to do the books and run the checks at night, and of course many other businesses have night shifts and hire women. Hate crimes terrorize entire communities of people, and for that reason (in my opinion) they should be categorized as crimes that terrorize entire communities and carry additional punishments.

Anti-discrimination laws are a different story, and I also understand the sense of ambivalence one might have towards them. The Constitution guarantees that all laws should apply equally to all persons. But when the Federal Government, the States and municipalities institutionalize segregation in one form or another the precedent is set to interpret the Constitution in a way as to allow that segregation. Even if that's only perception, it would seem legislation is sometimes required to reaffirm and make crystal clear the basic values of our body of law.

[onmyknees]

Massachusetts officially became the 16th state to treat transgender citizens as a protected class today as Governor Deval Patrick hosted a ceremonial signing of the groundbreaking rights bill.
As Colorlines is reporting, the law legally protects transgender individuals from discrimination in housing, education, employment and credit, in addition to providing additional civil rights and protections from hate crimes.

What an odd choice of language, its like ranking transgendered people along with the Beaver or the Snail Darter -if citizens of the USA have equal rights, all citizens have them -isn't this covered by anti-discriminatory legislation anyway? Don't understand it.

You my friend do not understand America Circa 2012, but you're not alone !!!!!

I noticed that language too....strange. Here's what the hate crime legislation in NY has essentially become.( I have to be politically correct here, or they'll thought police will come out of the shadows) If a white crack addict holds up a black guy at gun point for no other reason than both happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and one is a "mark" or opportunity....if the aggressor mutters a racial slur while clubbing him in the head.....that constitutes a hate crime and will get him a extra 5 years on his assault/armed robbery sentence. However if both are white, or both black and the same result occurs...no hate crime. And since you have to issue "qualifiers" on here lest you be labeled a hater, or racist....I understand the need to make those who discriminate criminally and civilly liable, I just thought we already had those laws. If transgendered people were not covered in the original laws...they should have been.

[Stavros]

Thanks to all for the explanations and comment. In the 1980s the elected leader of one of the Labour Councils in London (Linda Bellos) was/is Black, Jewish, Lesbian, Disabled and a Single Mother -I guess in the US that gives her 'protected status' five times over -unless some lawyer decides that Black-Jewish-lesbian-Disabled-Single Parents run the risk of specific crimes and need a distinctive clause in law protecting their status..there comes a point when it ought not be necessary to turn the law inside out to prove a crime has been committed, or to get someone off the charge, but that would probably reduce the opportunities for lawyers to make money.Without wishing to extend this too far, I wonder if an attempt to be precise in law actually makes the process harder; Scottish law is considered more precise than English law, but that doesn't mean a trial in either countries produces a fairer, or a less fair result because of the language of the law.

[trish]

It would be difficult for a strangler to kill six Black-Jewish-lesbian-Disabled-Single Parents and be accused of terrorizing the community of zero remaining Black-Jewish-lesbian-Disabled-Single Parents. At that point I admit, my argument will fail. But I don't think the example diminishes the argument.

You raise an interesting point: is it better for the law to be precise or better for it to be a little bit fuzzy around the edges. I hope my paraphrase doesn't do too much violence to the intent of the question. Precision in natural language is as difficult to achieve as the conceptual analysis of concepts that was sought after by the early analytic philosophers. Still, my off the cuff preference would be to make the law as precise as possible. I don't think the effect of precision will create as many jobs for lawyers as it will for legislatures who will continually see the need to tweak the language to make it say exactly what they meant it to say. Isn't that, in effect, a lot of what legislatures do anyway?

[fred41]

I completely understand your third argument Trish. However it seems to read that because more people fall victim to a particular crime the punishment should be harsher, but to what end if there isn't a proven deterrence?

I'm not sure the average oaf mentality that many of these crimes are perpetrated by...ever consider the years added to the sentence of their crimes in the event they were to be caught. Sometimes it just seems like a feel-good measure created to placate a particular group of people. I don't necessarily have a problem with this because I feel many sentences doled out by judges for violent crimes are far too lenient...
...actually, come to think of it, that is probably a good reason for hate crime laws: They tie the hands of the sentencing judiciary by raising sentence minimums.

I don't think the effect of precision will create as many jobs for lawyers as it will for legislatures who will continually see the need to tweak the language to make it say exactly what they meant it to say. Isn't that, in effect, a lot of what legislatures do anyway?

In fact, that is a significant responsibility of their job.

BTW...I was going to give a knee jerk quote to the effect of : most of the NYS legislature is composed of lawyers anyway...but I just checked that info and it seems that statistically that isn't true anymore. In fact, the percentages seem to be dropping. Who knew? (lol..well, apparently I didn't anyway).

[Stavros]

I completely understand your third argument Trish. However it seems to read that because more people fall victim to a particular crime the punishment should be harsher, but to what end if there isn't a proven deterrence?
I'm not sure the average oaf mentality that many of these crimes are perpetrated by...ever consider the years added to the sentence of their crimes in the event they were to be caught. Sometimes it just seems like a feel-good measure created to placate a particular group of people. I don't necessarily have a problem with this because I feel many sentences doled out by judges for violent crimes are far too lenient...
...actually, come to think of it, that is probably a good reason for hate crime laws: They tie the hands of the sentencing judiciary by raising sentence minimums.

Fred I think there is a difference between people who are victims of crime because they have the property the thief wants to steal, and those who are killed because they are, for example, transgendered =a client injuring or killing a transexual escort.

Fortunately or unfortunately for Ms Bellos, while making this evening's dinner I realised I had forgotten to mention she is also a feminist and a socialist, ergo she might be classified as a Black, Jewish, Lesbian, Feminist, Socialist, Disabled single parent...now I guess I will be attacked for the order in which I placed them....for what its worth I was once influenced -in a positive way- by a German Feminist Socialist Lesbian, London in the 1980s was memorable in so many ways...

[trish]

I completely understand your third argument Trish. However it seems to read that because more people fall victim to a particular crime the punishment should be harsher, but to what end if there isn't a proven deterrence?

I would say the end is justice. If the strangler kills one person he's charged with one murder. If he strangles two he may be charged with two murders and given two independent sentences. If he strangles eight women and terrorizes a city full of women, I see nothing wrong with a system that allows him to be prosecuted eight times for murder and once for terrorizing a community. I would be in favor of laws against hate-crimes that allow that sort of interpretation.

Of course this response presumes that deterrence isn't the sole reason for sentences that include fines and confinements. I have some sympathy with the negation of that presumption, but I'm not there yet. Also I'm not convinced that the families that bring up those "oafs" might not eventually be sufficiently influenced by hate-crime-laws as to do less to instill hatred in their offspring.