Hatred Reigns Supreme...

So it's been awhile since I've posted. Anyone who read my last commentary on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) knows how I feel about the issues regarding equal opportunity employmet for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people.

After my diatribe about ENDA I decided to do what any concerned citizen would do and write my senators and congressmen. I got an interesting reply via e-mail that brought up some concern.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R) office sent me what I can only assume is a generic letter containing the senator's positions on various issues facing our nation right now. In this letter, the honorable senator noted that she was against hate crimes legislation on its own merit because all violent crime should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law regardless of the motivation. This position got me thinking and so I did some research and there are many members of our legislature who claim to have at least similar positions on this issue.

Though the idea sounds good in principle, there are some obvious facts that our legislators are not thinking of when they take such a position. Hate crimes legislation has a purpose after all. Of course I agree that all violent crime should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law but the reason that hate crimes legislation exists is because it is often NOT all treated equally. How often do law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, and juries tend to go easier on the very acts of violence described by hate crimes legislation? The reason that those laws are being drawn up is to make certain that no backwoods justice can take place where a bigot can commit violence against a minority and get off with a slap on the wrist. Hate crimes legislation evens the playing field for minority victims of persecution. Look at the case of Matthew Shephard and how little attention was brought to the case and the leniency shown to his murderers until the motivation behind their crime was brought to the light of day and angry members of the public forced the hands of the legal system and law enforcement.

The members of congress who subscribe to such a position are using it to double-talk their way out of the issue. They are dancing around the issue at hand in order to keep the support of the right-wing who doesn't want hate crimes legislation enacted. Why, you ask? Because the right wing is the single source, motivation, energy and driving force behind the origination and continuation of hatred, bigotry, and persecution of minority groups in our nation today. Unfortunately, they have a lot of pull. Any conservative may publicly claim that all violent crimes should be punished equally but how many of them smirk and snicker behind closed doors when the guy who murdered that "faggot" got off easy? I would guess the number is very large.

The issue at hand is simply equality and fairness. All people are created equal and should be treated as such and therefore all free-thinking people should be behind this issue. Write you congressmen and senators and make them stop dancing around the matter at hand. Make them ADMIT their position and then, when we find out how closed-minded they can be or simply how spineless and unwilling to take a stand they are, we can vote them out. That is what democracy is for, after all!