re debating special hate crimes laws was how many homosexuals in article pmrakinnpun senator bedfellow mit edu wdstarr athena mit edu william december starr writes if someone beats up a homosexual he should get charged for assault and battery why must we add gay bashing to the list isn t this a sort of double jeopardy or am i just being a fascist again douglas meier assuming the questions are not rhetorical the answers are to deter an epidemic of gay bashing that has not been deterred by assault laws no it is not double jeopardy a single act may lead to multiple charges and multiple crimes yes let s leave aside the personal insult potential that doug created by asking his last question and just concentrate on the legal political debate last point first yes a single act may lead to multiple independent charges however as a side note i think that the prohibition on double jeopardy mandates that the suspect be tried on all those charges at the same time in the same trial unless of course the government can pull the separate sovereignties crock that they re using on those four lapd cops who arrested rodney king i e trying a person who s already been acquitted in state court on federal charges arising from the same act i think that this is double jeopardy but apparently the courts don t agree with me note that the laws that don t agree with you were passed to protect a class of people who couldn t get justice from the state courts specifically civil rights workers in missisippi in the s the federal protection of individual rights supersedes the non feasance of the state something similar has long been traditional well he s queer so i beat him up for gays you pays your money and you takes your pick me i lean strongly towards the against argument i know that having the law treat everyone as equals regardless of realities will not in and of itself lead to true equality and in fact may lead at times towards greater inequality nonetheless i believe that true equality is at least possible when the laws treat people as being equal while true equality is by definition impossible when the laws themselves mandate unequal treatment of classes of people by the state william december starr wdstarr athena mit edu as anatole france said the law in its impartial majesty forbids the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges equality of law can be construed in any number of ways for example the fact that all property thefts regardless of value are not punished equally is an inequality which protects those who have a lot of money from having it stolen you could easily define equality to regard the property in terms of it s significance for the owner this would a form of equality that would be skewed toward poorer people in fact most anti gay bashing laws are constructed to offer equal protection they make it an offense to damage people based on a motivation of hatred for sexual orientation thus the law in its impartial majesty protects hets as well as gays from being bashed i m sure that s a great relief to douglas meier nick nussbaum nickn eskimo com po seattle wa
