Love Crimes
Also at 365gay.com, a story about attempts in Pennsylvania to soften their hate-crimes laws:
(Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) A bill has been introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature to remove several classifications including gays, lesbians, and the transgendered from the state’s hate crimes law.
The legislation would also remove protections for people who are victims of crimes due to their actual or perceived ancestry, mental or physical disability, and gender.
The bill was sought by two conservative groups who said that the law discourages free speech….
Now, I expect that I'm as much a first-amendment lover as the next left-wing nutcase, but I do have some trouble with people who only see the value of the constituion in giving them freedom to attack others, either with nasty name-calling or by shooting them with handguns, and get upset if they're asked not to go out of their way with the violence of their "free speech" (things like beating up faggots are usually prosecuted under hate-crimes laws).
Wasn't it enough for the wacky reactionaries to invent the idea of "Political Correctness" just so they could try to disarm their targets pre-emtively (as in, "Oh, I know it's tediously PC of me to put it this way, but these tiresome fudge-packers really don't deserve special rights")? Evidently not. Perhaps the tumescence-producing thrill of being anti-PC has passed.
But there are good reasons for this move in Pennsylvania:
"There's no such thing as a 'love' crime," said Nancy Staible , director of the Zelienople-based Concerned Women group. "We'd like to take it all out." But because a wholesale demolition of the law is not likely, "we'll do it by bits and pieces" starting with the gay provisions Staible said.
There you go: all crimes are hate crimes! Obviously, hate-crime legislation gives "special rights" to certain victims, and we'd really all rather be equal, so there.
I do, however, just love this idea of "love crimes" — isn't it a positively fabulous phrase! I can already hear the theme song for the television show. Why not plan a few "love crimes" of your own for Valentine's day?
She's wrong of course: until very recently, sex between two people of the same gender was widely illegal, a "love crime" if ever there was one.
But now, witness this final triumphant "argument" (it helps to know that the Pennsylvania hate-crimes legislation is known as "The Ethnic Intimidation Act"):
"These are not ethnic groups in the first place," Staible said.
You tell 'em, Nancy!