Joshua Nowitz stared at the epitaph of one of the first Utahns known to have died because of violence motivated by hatred.

He knew the story well. In 1879, a band of 12 men murdered Joseph Standing, a 24-year-old Mormon missionary serving in Georgia, simply because he was a member of the LDS Church. The acquitted killers had boasted, "There is no law in Georgia for the Mormons."

"[Utah] was founded by people who sought to escape persecution," Nowitz said last month in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. "But now, we're in danger of falling into a state of persecution ourselves."

What was once a mere high-school senior project - a paper and field work on hate crimes - at central Utah's Wasatch Academy ultimately compelled Nowitz to put his college plans on hold, shunning more than $100,000 worth of academic scholarships in the process.

Nowitz moved to Utah's capital at the end of the summer to help Rep. David Litvack, D-Salt Lake City, pass a new law banning hate crimes. Litvack and his predecessors have failed in that task for each of the last 13 years.

All that exists on the books is a form of hate-crimes legislation that is so vague even Attorney General Mark Shurtleff decries it as useless. Utah remains one of only a handful of states that do not have an enforceable, prosecutable hate-crimes law.

"I think it's disgusting," Nowitz said last month over breakfast at a downtown restaurant. "It's about human rights. A hate crime is an attempt to silence someone because of who they are, what they believe and what makes them different. It makes us all victims."

He believes the issue is significant because advocates for a tougher standard, along with the Salt Lake City Police Department, agree that hate crimes occur. Police statistics show that a total of 43 hate crimes were reported during 2002 and 2003.

A visible advocate: Salt Lake City Detective Dwayne Baird said police are powerless to prosecute hate crimes.

Enforcement gets murky, he said, when it's difficult to tell whether the crime was motivated by hate or another reason. Of the 43 crimes reported, police determined that 24 were primarily motivated by hate.

Nowitz said that since there is no way to track the crimes without first passing a law, "It's kind of like trying to desegregate the country before abolishing slavery."

A Jew with nearly shoulder-length brown hair and a pierced eyebrow, Nowitz himself could be a hate-crime target. Lanky, loud and loquacious, the 5-foot-11, 140-pound teenager often elicits powerful reactions from those he meets. Those who encounter him have no choice but to form an opinion. His demeanor demands it.

"The first thing I asked him was, 'Why are you here?' " said his 28-year-old roommate, Adam Milman, a medical student at the University of Utah. "He told me he wanted to pass hate-crimes legislation in Utah. I wanted to know why a person's motivation to commit a crime was essential."

Milman, who also is Jewish and leans to the right politically, said he recognized that though he might not agree with Nowitz's views, he couldn't dismiss them.

"His responses are not based on emotions," Milman said. "He provides articulate, intelligent answers that I have to address."

Hate-crimes legislation is a controversial issue nationally, and particularly in Utah. Some opponents claim that it's part of "the gay agenda." In past years, legislators have cited the Bill of Rights' guarantees of free speech as a reason to block passage.

During other sessions, they have argued that Litvack and his predecessors have sought to extend protection to some groups, but not to others. With those roadblocks, a stronger hate-crimes bill has faltered every year since 1991.

"No golden egg": Litvack, Nowitz and Shurtleff say an effective law would actually protect all groups from hate-motivated violence.

Mark Cohen, a Democratic Pennsylvania legislator, sums up that perspective. "Hate crimes deserve to be taken even more seriously than ordinary crimes because they victimize all they threaten, as well as all they directly harm."

In May, Nowitz organized a Capitol Hill rally in favor of stronger hate-crimes legislation that attracted about 150 people. The coalition Nowitz helped found - Utahns Together Against Hate, or UTAH - has hired a lobbyist to work on behalf of a new hate-crimes law. Litvack said the lobbyist's salary will come from private donations.

The Democratic lawmaker couldn't say whether this January's legislative session will be the one that leads to the long-awaited hate-crimes triumph.

"It's hard to have an accurate feel for where my colleagues are at this point," he said. But Litvack said Nowitz's presence on the team could have an impact.

"If there's one thing I've learned about this issue, it's that there is no golden egg in the sense that one person, one thing is going to push us over the edge," Litvack said. "But one thing Josh is bringing that we haven't had in the past is devoted time. Up 'til now, the individuals who fought for it have done it only part time, in addition to their own full-time jobs."

Nowitz works about 40 hours a week on the issue, crafting recruitment letters, compiling hate-crimes data and connecting the coalition's growing network of contacts.

His passion for the cause, and life in general, surprises virtually no one. Nowitz, who says he has been diagnosed with an attention-deficit disorder, has interests that span a wide spectrum. He has a black belt in tae kwon do, is an actor and a songwriter, and plays the piano.

"He's got something driving him that you can't quantify," says Tass Bey, his former debate coach and rhetoric teacher at Wasatch Academy. "In class, when most students are content, Josh is wanting to break new ground. Generally, he's categorized by upper-end originality and unpredictability."

Bey says that Nowitz's brilliance and boldness compensates for what he lacks in patience, careful plotting and understanding.

"The majority has been wrong": Another teacher - Lee Thomsen, who taught English to Nowitz in Houston before the teen transferred to Wasatch Academy - has witnessed a transformation in his former student.

"[In Houston,] you knew there was a lot going on there. But you got the sense of him not being really sure of who he was," said Thomsen, now principal of Rowland Hall-St. Mark's Upper School in Salt Lake City. "It's clear that he's much more confident, that he knows himself in a much deeper way than he did a year and a half ago."

Yet with a self-awareness unusual for one so young, Nowitz concedes that one of his flaws remains following through. "I've always had a lot of different ideas, but my eyes are often bigger than my stomach," he says.

Thomsen and Nowitz see the young man's hate-crimes work as a nontraditional vehicle for self-exploration, and simultaneously, an opportunity to permanently alter Utah's political landscape.

His current journey is important enough to Nowitz that he's chosen to finance his own stay in Salt Lake. Some days he doesn't know how he's going to eat. He earns no money from his hate-crimes activism and his wages are $6.50 an hour plus tips at a neighborhood coffee shop, where he works 30 hours a week.

Nowitz also pays $400 a month in rent. He fibbed to his parents that he had another $900 saved up to convince them that he was financially independent.

His father, Les Nowitz, a 64-year-old Houston physician, confirmed that he and his wife, Leora, 57, are not financially supporting their son.

"He's standing on his own two feet," Les Nowitz says. "I'd like to see him achieve it [passing the hate-crimes law]. He's only 18 years old. If he can pull it off, it would be a big feather in his cap."

Though conservatives in the Legislature could prove nearly as challenging as his personal finances, they don't daunt Nowitz either.

"In most moral crises that caused a societal change, the majority has been wrong," he said. "Look at the civil-rights movement. It's always been the few who have turned out to be right."

mcronin@sltrib.com

What is a hate crime?

Nationally: The U.S. Congress' definition of what constitutes a hate crime has evolved since it first identified the term in 1992. Today, a hate crime is any crime committed due to the perpetrator's hatred, bias or prejudice based on a person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

In Utah: Utah's current law defines a hate crime as a civil-rights violation and is categorized as a third-degree felony. Acts committed by perpetrators that could fall under this law consist of: the misdemeanor offenses of assault, property destruction, any criminal trespass offense, theft, obstructing government operations, any offense of interfering or intending to interfere with activities of colleges and universities, any offense against public order and decency, any telephone abuse offense, any cruelty to animal offense or any weapons offense.

If the perpetrator commits any of those offenses with the intent to intimidate or terrorize another person or with reason to believe that his action would intimidate or terrorize that person is guilty of a third degree felony.

The law states that "intimidate or terrorize" means an act which causes the person to fear for his physical safety or damages the property of that person or another. The act must be accompanied with the intent to cause a person to fear to freely exercise or enjoy any right secured by the Constitution or laws of the state or by the Constitution or laws of the United States.