Nope.

One thing I think you can count on is that many Republicans do not believe in “Hate Crimes.”

Will attacks on transgender South Carolinians lead to a state hate crime law?
The State
By Bristow Marchant
September 07, 2018

An attack on a transgender woman in Charleston last month is reigniting talk about whether South Carolina needs a hate crime law.

LGBT advocates say they would like to see the state adopt an expansive definition of hate crimes after a trans woman was knocked unconscious outside a nightclub on Aug. 19.

A suspect in the attack — which police say was preceded by a confrontation over the victim’s gender — was arrested Tuesday, and charged with assault and battery. Thus far, no federal hate crime charges have been filed in the Charleston case.

“The difference with the feds getting involved could be a felony,” said Chase Glenn, executive director of the Charleston-based advocacy group Alliance for Full Acceptance.

First, I do not think that Attorney General Sessions will press federal hate crime charges. I will be very surprise if had did.

South Carolina is one of five states that does not have a state hate crime law. Bills to create a state-level law — which would increase the penalties for crimes motivated by hatred or bias — have been introduced in the past. But none has come close to passing, even after a 2015 racially motivated shooting in a Charleston church that killed nine.

State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, was a sponsor of a state hate crime bill earlier this year and plans to reintroduce the bill when lawmakers return to the State House in January.

“It appears we’re in a climate where intolerance and hatred reign, and it’s not getting better,” Cobb-Hunter said.

What many conservatives ignore is that there are serval levels of types of crime. Take murder for an example; there is accidental murder (you were made a left turn into a coming car), there are spur of the moment (you get into an argument and you push someone), and there is premeditative murder (you get into an argument, go out to your car get your gun come in and shoot a person), it all boils down to motive.

“I don’t think we need more laws,” Gov. Henry McMaster, R-Richland, facing re-election in November, told reporters at the Clemson debate. “We already have laws that cover injuries to people.”

What the governor doesn’t seem to understand is motive.

A hate crime is motivated because of animosity toward a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.* It also has a chilling effect among people of those protected classes.

I don’t know how many times trans people have told me that they are afraid of going out in public or deterred from going to particular places because of the fear of violence against them because of who they are.

Hate crimes are very hard to prove because it goes to motive, it almost takes an utterance to bring a charge of a hate crime (You f**king f****t!).

*In Connecticut the hate crime law has 7 protected classes;

 (a) A person is guilty of intimidation based on bigotry or bias in the second degree when such person maliciously, and with specific intent to intimidate or harass another person because of the actual or perceived race, religion, ethnicity, [or] disability, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression of such other person, does any of the following: (1) Causes physical contact with such other person, (2) damages, destroys or defaces any real or personal property of such other person, or (3) threatens, by word or act, to do an act described in subdivision (1) or (2) of this subsection, if there is reasonable cause to believe that an act described in subdivision (1) or (2) of this subsection will occur.

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Update 10:00AM

An attack on a LGBT center in Washington DC…

Police investigate possible hate crime after LGBTQ community center is vandalized in D.C.Washington Post
By Marissa J. Lang
August 31, 2018

A woman hurled a brick through the double-pane window of an LGBTQ community center in Anacostia this week in an incident D.C. police are investigating as a suspected hate crime.

The attack left a hole in the facade of Check It Enterprises and a crack in the door. It also rattled those who work and gather inside — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth who have grown to see the community center as a safe haven where they can escape violence and hate.

“Bad things happen to young people in this city,” said Ronald Moten, a youth mentor who has worked with Check It for about six years. “They’re always worried about their safety when they’re out there, but when they come here they feel safe. This is their safe haven.”

That is what hate crime do, create fear in a community