From: ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell)
Subject: Re: Colorado Amendment2 Query
Originator: ervan@cs.rice.edu
Reply-To: ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell)
Organization: Rice University
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 01:17:16 GMT



corwin+@CMU.EDU (Scott Safier) writes:
|> ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell) writes:
|> 
|>    I don't think you have met the challenge here.  If a gay person is 
|>    assaulted, are they denied legal recourse because they are gay?
|>    No.  The Colorado law does nothing of the sort.  
|> 
|> In Colorado, if a straight-white man is beaten by a gang of violent
|> drag-queens shouting "fucking straight asshole", the drag queens can
|> receive additional penalties for a hate crime based upon the person's
|> sexual orientation.  But if a gang of straight white men beat up on a
|> drag queen, shouting "fucking fag pervert", no additional penalties
|> can be applied because of Amendment 2 which singles out gay men,
|> lesbians and bisexuals for unequal protection.  

If this is true, you are right in a narrow way.  I would be interested
in evidence that such statutes have been or could be interpreted this
way.

In any case, it misses the real point.  My objection is that hate crime
penalties (beyond that for the nominal crime) and inconsistent with
equality before the law *in general*.  Indulge me for using a couple
of symbols to make my point:
G - gay man
S - straight man
x*y - x attacks y without prejudice
x!y - x attack y with prejudice

My initial comment was that equality before the law should be:
G*G = G*S = S*G = S*S = S!G = G!S
but that hate crime legislation made it be the case that:
G*G = G*S = S*G = S*S <> S!G = G!S 
and thus was unequal before the law.

Your response was that amendment 2 changed it to be:
G*G = G*S = S*G = S*S = S!G <> G!S
thus it created inequality.  If that's so, we should simply
iron out the last "<>".  Leaving hate crime legislation in place
only trades one kind of inequality before the law for another.

I ask you again to address my original question:
x*y == S!G ?  (meaning, should it be so)
I agree that S!G == G!S, regardless.

----------------------------------------
Warning: bickering follows.

|> 
|> Thanks to all those that clarified Ervan's misconceptions about the
|> Supreme Court's recent Hate Crimes decision.

What misconception was that?  I merely pointed out that in the RAV vs
St. Paul case the Supreme Court decided that the speech content 
(i.e. hateful motivation) could not
affect the penalty.  I suggested the same reasons applied to this
debate.  That's my attempt to use an analogy.  I did not say the 
Supreme Court has decided that to be so.  It has not.

Also, I would thank you for not using my first name in this context.

|> Ervan Darnell said:
|>    If particular juries 
|>    refuse to properly apply the law, that does not mean the law itself is
|>    unequal, it only means prejudice is so strong that implementation is
|>    difficult.
|> 
|> This misses the point.  Equality in law demands equality in
|> punishment.  You are correct that law reflects the society.  If people
|> are treated unequally in society, they are treated unequally by the
|> law.  The two are deeply interconnected, and cannot be seperated so
|> neatly as you would like.

Are you saying equality before the law means nothing but equality of
outcome?  Maybe you should define "treated equally in society".  Do you mean
attitude or circumstance (e.g. money, jobs, etc.)?  It seems that no law
can change attitudes (at least not as a direct consequence).  Is free
speech (something that I think applies to all equally) not equality
before the law because some do not have sufficient money to exercise
that freedom?  Do you simply not believe in the concept of a neutral
law?  If, as I understand your position, unequal society implies
unequal law and that we should have equality before the law, then the
conclusion is the government has an obligation to rearrange society
to create equality?  

If one accepts there can be no equality before the law when there
is not equality in society, then I agree that amendment 2 and
every other law we have passed does not past muster.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.equality:60 alt.politics.homosexuality:9345