Hate Crimes and Catholicism

Recently the AP came out with its typical PC version of hate crime statistics. The FBI releases these statistics on an annual basis (the stats from 2005 and 2006). The absolute numbers matter, however, most analysts look at the increase/decrease rates for future trends and changes in public attitudes/behaviors. In such a light, the AP focused its report on the increase of those hate crimes that are racially-biased. Over half of the hate crimes in the U.S. are racially-biased (51.8%), an increase of 7.8%. Another source provides variant interpretations of the data. The increase in anti-black hate crimes was only 0.4% while the increase in anti-white hate crimes was 7.5%!

Anti-religion hate crimes increased by 19%. Yet, the teeming throngs of islamophobic American citizens saw an minimal increase in anti-Muslim crimes of 2%. Meanwhile, anti-Jewish crimes increased by 14% and anti-Catholic crimes increased by 31%. It would appear that we, the tolerant, are less becoming less than tolerable. I guess it's not a huge surprise. The Catholic principles of "turning the other cheek" and forgiveness, coupled perhaps with a timidity of speaking out, undoubtedly reduce the number of reported anti-Catholic hate crimes. We can expect to see these numbers increase in the near future. "If they persecute me, they will persecute you..."

Another interesting tidbit: anti-homosexual crimes up by 22%; anti-heterosexual crimes up by 24%! I won't comment.

Here is Wikipedia's entry on "hate crimes." While I understand why hate crimes have received legal status, I personally question whether they ought to exist as they are. I believe that they're superfluous.