Tonight during the YouTube Republican Dog & Pony Show, you may see a video recorded by Pat and Lynn Mulder.
Their son, Ryan Skipper, was murdered by men who had absolutely not a care in the world for the life of other human beings. Ryan Skipper was a homosexual and his parents have become brainwashed or have brainwashed themselves into believing that the only reason Ryan was murdered was because he was gay.
They have also been brainwashed or have brainwashed themselves into believing that “Hate Crime” legislation will stop crime.
They hope their video is shown to the Republican candidates so that they may ask “how will they work to promote the value of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender families.”
The right answer is to say that members of the GLBT “community” will be treated like every other citizen in the United States and given the same rights as people not in the GLBT “community”. No special privileges and no special requirements. They will not be singled out for any compensation or punishment. Equal as equal can be.
Of course, this will not satisfy them as they have become fully engulfed in the pro-special rights for GLBT “community”, demanding special prosecutions for criminal acts in which members of their preferred “community” are victims, special rights to register their sexuality at City Hall and special privileges in employment.
They want to be told that they’ll get all of this and gumdrop rainbows from the Republican Party, but they won’t (OK maybe from Giuliani and Romney) and they know they won’t. They simply want to ask a question that is as loaded as possible so that they can wander around and piss and moan about it when they don’t get the answer they like.
Yet another special privilege of the GLBT “community”.
Umm special rights? There is already federal hate crime legislation that deals with race, religion and nationality. Are these considered special privileges? NO. Sexual identity is included as a motivation for federal hate crimes and has been since 1994. According to Former Chief of the Supreme Court Rehnquist “this [hate crime] conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm…. bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest.”
Freedom from violent discrimination isnt a “special” right – it should be universal.
It does not matter that Ryan Skipper’s being gay might not have been the only reason he was killed, it matters that it was motivation at all. Hate crime laws send the message that targeting people based on any of these factors will lead to greater prison time. If this sort of law saves the life of even one person then it is worth it. According to the DOJ, 14% of hate crimes are motivated by sexual orientation bias – why not deal with that problem like we have for every other targeted minority – by passing legislation.
Why are you so fearful of true equality? It only really threatens those who benefit from an unequal system.