Ever since the news came out last week about the house passage of a bill that would expand hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation, I've been reading a ton of comments on the internet by people who say things like "aren't all crimes hate crimes?"

The short answer is no.

It always burns me up when people who are not impacted by something (ie. people who aren't from a ethnic, religious or sexual minority group) claim to be experts on a subject. I mean, if it doesn't concern you, why wouldn't you ask for edification from someone it does impact? I wouldn't spend my time telling you my opinion about abortion as if it's the only correct opinion, since I am far away from that issue. If I wanted to know more about it, I'd probably ask a woman, for instance.

And I don't think the question these people are asking, above, is a real question.

Ask Jack Price whether the crime committed against him on Friday morning was the same as any other crime. Of course, he can't answer, because he's in a coma.



Until you know what it is like to know that your life could be in jeopardy simply because you are who you are, you can't understand. These crimes are more insidious than typical assaults, and the reason hate crimes legislation exists is to make sure that the perpetrators don't get a slap on the hand and a "oh, you know, boys will be boys" explanation for their homicidal behavior. That sort of response to crimes of hate is the reason these laws exist in the first place.

The gay panic defense is a perfect example of why these laws need to exist. That's the defense that explains away violent acts against gays and lesbians as a response to a "come on" by the gay person. It blames the victim, as if a violent response is a correct response to an alleged "come on."

This is no different than what happened in 1955 in Mississippi, when Emmett Till was lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Without laws in the books to protect those in minority groups, the criminals in that case were able to walk free.

The hate crimes legislation signed in 1968 made such an attack a federal crime. Which was necessary because as much as some people would like to believe that Till's murderers would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law by local law enforcement, that wasn't even close to the case. Adding sexual orientation to the law means that if such a crime were to occur in a small town in Montana, say, the local police couldn't sweep it under the rug and say that it was just "boys being boys."

It's not enough to say that "all violent crimes should be prosecuted vigorously," because to this point, many of these crimes have not been.

To be protected by the law is not a special right. It's a civil right. The difference is that civil rights is about making sure no one group gets worse treatment than any other group. Special rights assumes that a law somehow makes it favorable to be in one group than another.

I promise you, every LGBT person in the world would prefer to know that they could walk to a deli without having their head beaten in by thugs while being called hateful names, and therefore not need such a law, than to have things as they are.