Hate destroys people

It could happen to you or me. He was just another gay person. Now he is our gay person. He is our martyr. We have had others. There was Stonewall. There have been many others. Far too many others.

What happened? Didn't you hear? They killed him because he was Gay! They had been so very carefully taught to hate. To them, he was not human or possibly less than human. Interestingly, this is a theme that plays all through history. They did the same thing in Germany to the Jews and the Gays.

The sad thing is that all over the country crimes are perpetrated on gays because they are gay and nothing is done about it. In one Georgia city, a gay person could be riding through the town and be pulled over by the police just becaue they had a rainbow sticker on the car. The officer proceeds to break a tail lamp and then say that the person was driving with no tail lamp. Some how people go out of their way to do harm to gay persons.

Many straight people claim to believe in equality under the law and feel the existing laws are sufficient. I find it interesting that these same people are blind to the fact that the police are part of the problem. Many officers will ignore crimes done to gay persons. This may not be true in some of the larger cities or of all police, but by and large, it is true.

The point of hate crimes legislation is that it would be a federal crime to commit crimes of this type. The injured persons or, in this case, the family of the dead person would have recourse outside of the narrow confines of the bigoted, narrow jurisdiction in which they may live.

Sooner or later the hate mongers will find these pages. You know who you are if you are one of those people. But just in case you don't know, let me tell you who these people are.
These people fall into numerous groups but I will discuss only three: the murderers, the killers and the thieves.

The murderers are those who would find justification for taking the life of anyone who lives their life differently from theirs. These people find justification for murder in their Bibles for their own behavior that God would find abhorrent. They will bomb, rape, maim and destroy anyone who gets in their way.

The killers are those people who claim to be open to all kinds of lifestyles but who in reality will make jokes about their fellow employees and tell ugly jokes about gays behind their backs. These people deceive themselves and others; all the while they are belittling those whom they claim to befriend.

The thieves are those who seemingly befriend gays and lesbians when they meet them and then treat them like a pet. These people are not interested in knowing who we are or how we feel or what our interests are. And when we respond to their treatment with anger, they may be heard to say, "We tried so hard to make Jeff and John feel at home. They just don't appreciate how hard we tried." Get a grip!!! If you have to try hard to do something with a friend doesn't that tell you something!