"crimes of passion" are to honour killings what American bombing the crap out of an Afghan wedding are to terrorism.
It's a way of de-legitimising your enemy, and making his stuff sound all strange and cooky and more evil.
It's an emotive coining designed to propagandise someone elses actions, to render them lower than your own, when in reality they're exactly the same. A Muslim man kills a family member in a fit of rage and it's an honour killing, a Christian does it and we've got this lovely little epithet "crime of passion", it's really disgusting that you actually use the word passion to describe such an horrific act. You're an apologist for the most wicked of crimes soren, really.
Quote:A crime of passion, in popular usage, refers to a crime in which the perpetrator commits a crime, especially assault or murder, against a spouse or other loved one...
In some countries, notably France, crime passionnel (or crime of passion) was a valid defense during murder cases; during the 19th century, some cases could be a custodial sentence for two years for the murderer, while the spouse was dead; this ended in France as the Napoleonic code was updated in the 1970s so that a specific father's authority upon his whole family was over.
See also
* Murder-suicide
* Honor killing
(
wikipedia:crime_of_passion)
Not surprisingly the Napoleonic code was the first European law system introduced into the Muslim world, and most likely where this ridiculous notion that such abhorrent crimes are acceptable or understandable.
So if it makes you feel better to give it a nice palatable fuzzy wuzzy little name for your people, and a nasty evil name for others, so be it. If you're happy with that, then don't let the fear of appearing like a complete and utter goose stop you.