Murdered Gay Man Apparently To Spur Changes To Hate Crime Laws
I don’t get this…
DETROIT – Andrew Anthos had many passions in life, including old movies, legendary Hollywood screen sirens and a 20-year campaign to illuminate the state Capitol dome in red, white and blue one night a year. While he never hid that he was gay, he was no gay rights activist.
But after dying of injuries suffered last month in what witnesses portrayed as a gay-bashing, the 72-year-old Anthos has become a powerful symbol in a campaign to amend federal and state hate-crime laws to protect gays.
I fail to see how adding gays to existing “hate crime” laws would protect them any better than the laws against assault, harassment, murder, etc. already do. If gays had been protected under hate crime legislation before Mr. Anthos’ murder would he be any less dead?
The absurdity of hate crime legislation is illustrated by this quote from the same article:
“The whole point is making sure that people have equal rights in the legal system, people aren’t picked on or threatened just because they look or act differently,” said state Sen. Hansen Clarke, who plans to introduce legislation to amend Michigan’s Ethnic Intimidation Act.
It seems rather odd that Sen. Clarke would want to promote equality in the justice system by proposing legislation that, by definition, promotes inequality by saying that crimes against certain demographics in our population are some how worse than crimes against others.
For instance, if I went into a crowded bar, screamed out “You’re an inbred redneck” to some white guy and then proceeded to beat him bloody I’d be guilty of assault. Plain and simple. But if I went into a crowded bar and screamed out “You’re a stupid nigger” to some what guy and then beat him bloody I’d be guilty of a “hate crime” which carries a heavier sentence than the assault I’d have been charged with for beating the white guy. Yet how is one crime worse than the other? In each instance, did I not show that I hated the man I was beating? Why is beating a black man worse than beating a black man?
It makes no sense. Hate crime legislation isn’t about equality of law. I don’t promote murder or criminally violent behavior against anyone, regardless of the color of their skin or who they choose to have sex with, and that’s what we should be striving for.
There’s an old cliche which says that “justice is blind.” Indeed, sculptors have for traditionally symbolized “justice” as a blind folded woman. So if justice truly is without vision, what can we say of laws that set different standards of punishment based on nothing more than what sexual orientation or color the victim is?
They are unjust is what I say.
