Amy Michelson's Profile

Hate crimes are message crimes

Disdain of gay men and lesbians

During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.

Last week's rampage on a Jewish community center in Los Angeles reminds us that crimes once driven solely by hatred for one's race now stem from opposition to one's religion, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit organization which tracks hate crimes, there were over 500 hate groups operating in the U.S. in 1998.