In article <1993Apr5.050127.22304@news.acns.nwu.edu> dmeier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Douglas Meier) writes: >In article <1993Apr4.011042.24938@isc-br.isc-br.com> steveh@thor.isc-br.com >(Steve Hendricks) writes: >>In article <1993Apr3.211910.21908@news.acns.nwu.edu> >>dmeier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Douglas Meier) 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? >> >>() To deter an epidemic of "gay bashing" that has not been deterred by >>   assault laws.   > >So we ought to make beating up a homosexual more illegal than beating up a >straight?  Silly me, thinking that the issue was that we are all people, to be >treated equally.  Thanks for straightening me out. ------------------------------ Wrong, if a bunch of faggots from the tenderloin decide to go straight bashing and they selectively target a heterosexual man and beat the bloody fuck out of him, they would get charged as well under all the federal laws that exist about violation of civils rights. The focus of their intent is his sexual orientation, and so the law applies to them as well. The national government retains the right to make any laws necessary to sufficiently deter and punish any crime against someone's civil rights until that behavior becomes so well punished that nobody even tries it! The fact is, that at last count, gays were not beating straights for their sexual orientation. Thus, the law is getting applied only to the straights who indulge themselves. The federal government or judiciary has the right to enforce the 14th amendment guarantee of equal protection under law even if it takes 1000 possible charges against people who would violate them. Go read your constitutional law. We broke the back of the KKK's harrassment campaign with the same strategy in the early 1900's. So many went to jail and for so long that it cut the heart out of the KKK.  -RSW  >>() No, it is not "double jeopardy."  A single act may lead to multiple >>   charges and multiple crimes. > >I think what you meant to say here was, "With the current mutation of the US >Constitution under the current police state, someone may be charged multiple >times for one act if the victim in question is of the right shade."  A single >act should never merit more than on charge.  That's almost like if four cops >got acquitted from cruel and unusual punishment charges, and the country went >and tried them again and again until they... oh.... never mind. ---------------------------------------- This "mutation" as you call it, protects your little butt too, if you happen to be somewhere where you're the wrong "shade" for somebody else's taste. If it can be shown that the motive for the assault on you was racially motivated, then the full power of these extra laws that bring more charges and punishments will come against those who harmed you. The first use of such laws was well over a hundred years ago, and constitutional scholars of all conviction recognize that this right reserved to the federal government is well established and not just some short-lived peculiarity, too! Go read some constitutional law for awhile. Maybe you'll get it. -RSW  >Douglas C. Meier >dmeier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu --------------------------