Hate crimes NEED to be noticed.

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Lawrence King. His untimely death was an unmitigated tragedy which has profoundly effected many people. I am sure that he will be sadly missed and fondly remembered by all those who knew him. Secondly, I would like to thank my opponent for starting this important debate. However, with the greatest respect, I feel morally obliged to negate the motion and also contradict the supporting arguments. The motion was "Hate crimes need to be noticed". I disagree. For too long now, homosexual men have sought to portray themselves as victims and have demanded extra rights over other members of society. As a result, in many countries, gay men are now afforded special privileges. This, paradoxically, has lead to resentment and actually fuelled hatred towards them. To illustrate my point, let's examine an everyday scenario: You are drinking in a pub patiently waiting for your wife to finish the shopping when a bloke bumps into you causing you to spill your pint. Unfortunately, the gentleman concerned doesn't have the courtesy to apologise, let alone offer to buy you another drink and being a decent, upstanding member of society, you naturally follow him outside to teach him some manners. Now, when the police arrive, you are arrested on suspicion of causing Grievous Bodily Harm under Section !8 of the Offences Against The Person Act, 1861 (where English law applies). Subsequently, you appear in court and are found guilty, but instead of the usual slap on the wrist you get a much stiffer sentence. Why? Because, the "victim" turned out to be homosexual and the judge accepted the prosecution's claim that the "attack" was "aggravated by homophobia". This, of course, was absolutely ridiculous. The fact that the man happened to be gay should have been completely irrelevant - he was just the bloke that spilled my pint, that's all. That's why decent, ordinary folk turn against gay men and is also why, for their own sakes, homosexual men should not given preferential treatment. Right, now that that is sorted, lets disassemble my opponents wafer-thin arguments. He wrote: "I could only find a few articals {sic} on this and feel that a story like this deserves more than a few local stories." Really? Well, I had no trouble finding stories about the incident, for example this one in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com... Hardly a "local" paper, is it? And the news reached Australia, where my opponent lives, which not exactly round the corner from California is it? Of course the incident deserved coverage, but on average eight children are killed in the USA every day as the result of gun crime and I noted that my opponent made no mention the other seven kids that were shot dead that day. http://www.csgv.org... Did their stories reach Australia? No, of course not. They weren't gay so their deaths couldn't be labelled as "hate crimes" by heterophobic journalists. To conclude, I would argue that Lawrence's death wasn't even a hate crime because Brandon was gay himself. Lawrence obviously knew this otherwise he wouldn't have asked him to be his valentine, would he? The problem occurred because Brandon was too ashamed to admit it and his classmates ribbed him about it. Now if this happened to a straight bloke he wouldn't throw a girly tantrum like Brandon did, he would turn the situation to his advantage. For example, he could turn to the girls and say something like: "Yes, you heard it right ladies, I'm a screaming homosexual. So, there's no reason not to invite me along to that sleepover you're having tonight, is there? We can play naked Twister together - I'll bring the baby lotion, shall I? Don't worry, I'm gay so you can trust me to behave, but if I do suddenly turn straight and make a lunge for your fabulously pert breasts, you can boast that it was you that cured me, can't you". In the final analysis, there is no reason why a gay boy should get more column inches (no pun intended) than a straight boy whose life is tragically snuffed out. Thank you.