Every time I get into a debate over the issue of males who identify as female using the women’s restrooms, I steadfastly rely on the Constitutional philosophy that equality under the law mean that the law applies to everyone equally and that creating special groups and giving them special Rights is unconstitutional and antithetical to the Ideals we constantly work to achieve here in America. This same philosophy is what puts defining something as a hate crime into the same category for the following reasons.
First of all, there is no such thing as a “love” crime. All crimes are committed because of hatred, resentment or jealousy towards someone or something. Next, in the eyes of God, we are all created equal, the Declaration of Independences states as much and the Constitution and Amendments to it continually progress us towards that goal.
So why is it that if a Muslim attacks a member of the Jewish community or a straight heterosexual attacks a member of the LBGT community it is deserving of greater punishment than if a Protestant attacks a Catholic or a member of the minority community attacks a white person. Hatred is a component of all of these and adding the designation of a hate crime to some is saying that one group’s Rights are greater than the others. Punish the crime.
The recent conviction of an Iowa man for burning a LGBT flag he stole and adding 15 years to the sentence because of a hate crime designation is a travesty and should raise red flags with everyone who believes in the Constitution and rule of law as it leads us further down the path of European tyrannical type justice where a person’s thoughts and ideas may be punished just because it offends someone else. First Amendment Rights be damned.
Personally, I believed the conviction was a bone thrown to the LGBT community after it was caught holding a clandestine gay pride event at Peet Junior High School hosted by State Senator Eric Giddens and illegally running the Gay Pride flag up the State Capital flag pole. Equality should be applied consistently across the board whether concerning Rights or punishment and creating special Rights based on emotions or attempts to appease vocal minorities is dangerous and something our Founders warned us against.
