Thirty-ish years ago, the Equal Rights Amendment died in the Illinois Legislature. The Constitution protects the rights of all “men.” Doesn’t mention women. That’s inferred, yes? Obvious inference? No it’s not–and more than once, some social troglodyte has gotten away with paying women less for the same work, or charging them more for a product or service, simply because there’s not a black-letter inclusion of women in the Constitution.

The same tactic was used with blacks. You don’t like government; I don’t really give a shit. It angers the hell out of me that a parsing of the Constitution has all too often been the open path for one American to deny another their civil rights. In fact, it’s the very cunning of people like them–people who are not far from you ideologically–that generates the necessity for laws that specifically include women, or visible minorities. Or gays.

Jack Price is an American who has the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He was going to the store, not on some adventure to the heart of darkness. All of us have the RIGHT to live unmolested. Or at least we should, but all too often, it’s people like you who parse legal texts and conclude that if the alleged victim is not specifically protected by the law, then there was no crime. You really think anyone here would take you seriously if you suggested that Price’s attack had nothing to do with him being gay?

Life’s funny, Jeff. You need to check yourself, because the arrogance of your comments is too much of an invitation for the universe to show you that you aren’t nearly as aloof and wise as you like to think. I hope it doesn’t happen to any of us here, not you or me or anyone, but you’re so full of shit that you don’t seem to understand that it COULD BE YOU. And your dislike of legislation which seems to confer “special rights” is your thoroughgoing denial that it takes those “special” laws just to get the same protection of Constitutional rights that at middle-aged white Republican on a golf course has taken for granted all his life.

Furthermore, I expect that such laws break defenses like “gay panic” since, in using such a defense, you are essentially admitting guilt under them. (Maybe Robert Hannah wouldn’t have gotten off with a mere 180 days for *killing* someone on the admitted basis of his sexual orientation.)

These laws can also be used to create harsher sentences that will incline people convicted under them to think harder before repeating the offense and keep them behind bars longer so that they have less opportunity to do so. Maybe it’ll make their friends (who probably share a mindset) think twice too.

Finally, it sends the message that hate crimes are not tolerated; just as these crimes terrorize their respective groups, these laws send a counter message that if you terrorize people, you *will* be punished for it.