
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 60'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


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.


