Tuesday, Gov. Gary Herbert proudly signed Utah’s new hate crime bill into law. It was a legislative effort that stalled for a number of years, but grew wings after the infamous attack at Lopez Tires, where a man brutally beat an 18-year-old and his father with a metal pole, shouting “I’m here to kill a Mexican.”
The new hate crime law allows for increased sentencing in horrific cases of racial violence like this one. At the same time, it muddies the meaning of a hate crime by stretching into areas far beyond what most of us would normally consider.