A Hate Crime or an Act of Self-Loathing?

Is a hate crime a hate crime if it is committed by someone who falls into the same group at which the hate is directed?

That is the question at the center of a recent court case regarding the March 2008 murder of a gay Canadian man. It kind of reminds me of that riddle where the tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it. I do not know the answer - to the riddle or to the question posed in this post. But this particular case, to me, evokes everything that I associate with the word hate. It screams hate.

Let's examine the facts. Morris McConnell, a 59-year-old man from Winnipeg, pleaded guilty to second degree murder for the horrifying slaughter of Kelvin John Osbourne, 42. McConnell stabbed the victim in the face and beat him with a hammer. And he was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for ten years. It is not the harshest of sentences, but that is not where the brunt of my beef lies.

In a recorded interview with the police, the guilty party denied he was gay. And then later "admitted he had previously suffered from confusion as to his sexuality," said Crown Attorney Scott Cooper.

McConnell spent the night of the murder drinking and smoking weed before running into the victim at the Sherbrook Inn, where he stopped to buy beer. The two men, who had met before, left the hotel together holding hands, according to witnesses. The very next night, after Osborne danced in front of McConnell and asked for oral sex, McConnell stabbed him in the face, head and neck, and hit him with a hammer nine times.

"He's dead, I killed him," said McConnell when the police arrived at his apartment. "When he asked me to make love to him I hit him about 100 times with a hammer and slit his throat with a butcher knife."

It seems pretty clear to me that this is a hate crime. The man might or might not identify as gay, but it is clear that he was targeted for his sexuality. These come-ons were enticed by McConnell. He held hands with the victim. He invited the victim over. Was the man wrong to assume McConnell was interested? No. Was he murdered because of this assumption? Yes. If he were straight, would he have been murdered? Well, no. To me, this was a hate crime. To the Crown, it was not.

"The position of the Crown is this was not a hate crime," Cooper said. "This was an act committed out of self-loathing."

In any case, the murderer is behind bars where he belongs. But that does not really clarify the situation. Hate crime or no hate crime? What do you think?

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons