Automoderated users, edit
1,837
edits
Changes
→Anti-homosexual violence: Discussion of recent changes to this part of the article.
:::I still do not understand what you think statistics on offender class would do. I would like to understand your point of view here. I'm guessing that most of the crimes that include racial bias would be done by someone of one race to someone of another, most of the crimes that include sexual-orientation bias would be done by someone of one orientation to someone of another, etc. Do you have a different understanding of these crimes? Can you give a hypothetical example? I am trying to understand your point of view.--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 10:52, 14 May 2007 (EDT)
:::I still do not understand what you think statistics on offender class would do. I would like to understand your point of view here. I'm guessing that most of the crimes that include racial bias would be done by someone of one race to someone of another, most of the crimes that include sexual-orientation bias would be done by someone of one orientation to someone of another, etc. Do you have a different understanding of these crimes? Can you give a hypothetical example? I am trying to understand your point of view.--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 10:52, 14 May 2007 (EDT)
[[User:RobS|RobS]], I do not understand why you made changes to the article without explaining your thinking here. The idea of the talk page is so that different editors can explain more fully their points of view, concerns, etc., so that other people editing the article can understand why certain edits have been made. I would really like a fuller understanding of your concerns about the hate crime statistics, mainly because I do not think I have the same understanding as you about about which kinds of crimes are included. I would very much like to understand your point of view about the limitations of the statistics. Let me flesh out my current concerns about the article:
''In 2005, law enforcement agencies reported 1,171 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias.'' <ref>U.S. Department of Justice — Federal Bureau of Investigation, [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2005/table4.htm Uniform Crime Reports], Offense Type by Bias Motivation, 2005 Table 4. </ref> I'm OK with this sentence. (We could cite the number of incidences, or the number of victims, but offenses is fine with me.) However, I think it's useful to get a sense of how many of the total hate crimes are based on sexual-orientation bias. If you prefer not to have further information in the article itself, I think a footnote could clarify important points (such as the fact that a few of these 1,171 offenses were actually anti-heterosexual.) Thus I would add this reference <ref>Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Hate Crime Statistics 2005, Incidences and Offenses[http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2005/incidentsoffenses.htm] ''Of these 1,171 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias, 60.9 percent were anti-male homosexual, 19.5 percent were anti-homosexual, 15.4 percent were anti-female homosexual, 2.3 percent were anti-bisexual, and 2.0 percent were anti-heterosexual. These 1,171 hate crimes made up about 14% of the total reported hate crime offenses.''</ref>
''While the FBI reports statistics by victim class or bias motivation, race, religion, sexual orientation and disability, ...'' Just a grammar detail here - I think it's important to be clear that race, religion, sexual orientation and disability ARE the victim classes / bias motivations, so I'd change it to ''While the FBI reports statistics by victim class or bias motivation (race, religion, sexual orientation or disability)..''.
''...the FBI does not report the sexual orientation of known offenders.'' I'm still not sure I understand your point here. The FBI also does not report the sexual orientation of victims. Some but not all of the crimes motivated by sexual-orientation bias were anti-homosexual; a few were actually '''anti-heterosexual'''. In addition, someone who is attacked because the attacker thinks they're gay may not in fact be gay. However, the point of this whole section is to show that there are some people out there who take their views against homosexuality to the extreme of committing crimes, and to get a sense of how widespread this problem is. The stats aren't a perfect fit for this purpose, so I think you're sensible to express some caveats about them. I had expanded the caveats, but I would be fine with putting my expansion in the footnotes. Thus I would add this footnote. <ref>''The FBI reports only the race, if known, of the offenders in these hate crimes (if the offender is known). It does not report the religion, sexual orientation, or disability status of the offenders.'' </ref>
''Thus a conclusion that all offenders are heterosexual is faulty, and the methodology does not measure gay-on-gay violence.'' I agree with this statement. However, I would add to it a little bit to say ''Thus a conclusion that all offenders in sexual-orientation hate crimes are heterosexual, or all victims are homosexual, is faulty; in addition, the methodology does not attempt to measure gay-on-gay violence, or violence against homosexuals that is not motivated by sexual-orientation bias.'' I think some people mistakenly believe that any crime against a homosexual counts as a hate crime, and thus these statistics include ALL crimes against homosexuals, which is not the case. There's a lot of misunderstanding about hate crimes, so I'd like to make it clear that incidences of violence against homosexuals that cannot be linked to bias based on sexual orientation (which would include most gay-on-gay violence) are not included in these statistics. (These stats also include non-violent crime - I'm not sure if we should go into that here or not.)
''In all of 2004, there was 1 anti-homosexual murder in the United States, and the FBI has reported none since.'' <ref>U.S. Department of Justice — Federal Bureau of Investigation, [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2004/tables/HateCrime2004.pdf Uniform Crime Reports], Offense Type by Bias Motivation, 2004 Table 4. </ref> First, let's be clear that this does NOT mean that only one homosexual person was murdered in 2004. It means that there was one murder which was motivated in whole or in part by bias against homosexuals. (It does not even mean that the victim was actually homosexual.) So we need to say ''anti-homosexual '''hate crime''' murder''. I think it's important to give the reader a context for this number - the fact is that relatively few hate crimes in general are murders. By giving this number in the context of the total number of hate crime murders, the reader an get a better understanding of the situation. (For example, if there had been 300 total hate crime murders with only one being anti-homosexual, that would be quite a different situation.) In addition, ''...and the FBI has reported none since'' is a bit misleading, because there is only one more year of statistics available, those for 2005. Still, we don't need to clutter up the article too much, so details can be given in the footnotes. I think we should say something like ''In 2004, there was one anti-homosexual hate crime murder in the United States, and there were none in 2005.'' <ref>U.S. Department of Justice — Federal Bureau of Investigation, [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2004/tables/HateCrime2004.pdf Uniform Crime Reports], Offense Type by Bias Motivation, 2004 Table 4. ''In 2004, there were 5 hate crime murders in the US, one of which was anti-homosexual, two were anti-white, one anti-black, one anti-Atheism/Agnosticism. In 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available, there were 6 hate crime murders, none of which was anti-homosexual; one was anti-white, two were anti-black,two were anti-Hispanic, and one was anti-Other Ethnicity/National Origin.''</ref>
So the whole thing would read:
:''In 2005, law enforcement agencies reported 1,171 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias.'' <ref>U.S. Department of Justice — Federal Bureau of Investigation, [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2005/table4.htm Uniform Crime Reports], Offense Type by Bias Motivation, 2005 Table 4. </ref><ref>Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Hate Crime Statistics 2005, Incidences and Offenses[http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2005/incidentsoffenses.htm] ''Of these 1,171 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias, 60.9 percent were anti-male homosexual, 19.5 percent were anti-homosexual, 15.4 percent were anti-female homosexual, 2.3 percent were anti-bisexual, and 2.0 percent were anti-heterosexual. These 1,171 hate crimes made up about 14% of the total reported hate crime offenses.''</ref> ''While the FBI reports statistics by victim class or bias motivation (race, religion, sexual orientation or disability), the FBI does not report the sexual orientation of known offenders.'' <ref>''The FBI reports only the race, if known, of the offenders in these hate crimes (if the offender is known). It does not report the religion, sexual orientation, or disability status of the offenders.'' </ref> ''Thus a conclusion that all offenders in sexual-orientation hate crimes are heterosexual, or all victims are homosexual, is faulty; in addition, the methodology does not attempt to measure gay-on-gay violence, or violence against homosexuals that is not motivated by sexual-orientation bias. In 2004, there was one anti-homosexual hate crime murder in the United States, and there were none in 2005.'' <ref>U.S. Department of Justice — Federal Bureau of Investigation, [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2004/tables/HateCrime2004.pdf Uniform Crime Reports], Offense Type by Bias Motivation, 2004 Table 4. ''In 2004, there were 5 hate crime murders in the US, one of which was anti-homosexual, two were anti-white, one anti-black, one anti-Atheism/Agnosticism. In 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available, there were 6 hate crime murders, none of which was anti-homosexual; one was anti-white, two were anti-black,two were anti-Hispanic, and one was anti-Other Ethnicity/National Origin.''</ref>
[[User:RobS|RobS]], I hope that you will explain your concerns here, so that we can work together to improve this article, incorporating both of our concerns to make the best article possible.--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 11:06, 6 June 2007 (EDT)
== References for Anti-homosexual violence discussion ==
<references/>
== "most common usage" ==
== "most common usage" ==