Why minority? I havn't heard of any hate crimes against Hispanics or Asians, only against gays and African-Americans.

While what I have read about beatings and abuse administered to homosexuals and African-Americans is despicable and worthy of extreme social sanction, it should be no more so than anyone else who committed a similar crime.

Mind you, I'm not attempting to equate a sin like homosexuality with a skin color associated with national origin, some morons out there do, ergo a crime committed against either is prosecuted and punished with equal fervor and tenacity. The illogicality of it all is mind-boggling and stems from, I believe, a shift in the legal community that began a century ago.

Judges like Oliver Holmes began rejecting the idea of an objective morality, determining that the State says what the law is because the State said so, and that's that. This logic has seemingly empowered court decisions determining that it's ok to think "wrongly" in America, but if you think "too wrongly", then the law will no longer offer you protection, i.e. in defamation laws and Judge Hand's "wrong/too wrong" dicotomy. I realize that hate crimes are statutory in nature, but I don't doubt that the same reasoning lies behind them, that you can think wrongly in the States' opinion, but if you think too wrongly then you're out of luck.

BJC,

While I realize religion is what is hypothetically protected by hate crime legislation, that is not how it translates in reality. In reality, all religions are tolerated and protected except Christianity. I wouldn't be too suprised if he manager was given some sort of medal by the ACLU.

__________________
Andrew DeShazo, Deacon, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"All of us stumble in many ways, but if anyone is never at fault in what he says, then he is mature, able to control his whole body."(James 3:2)