Of rights and crimes.

Many of us applauded the recent movement towards enhancing hate-crime legislation to include sexual orientation and identity. Some of us declare Victory! Look at this wonderful accomplishment. We have enshrined in de jure what should already be de facto; basically that if your motives are hate and identification of difference in the targeting of your victim than you should face a stiffer penalty. Though I am a bit edgy about making laws concerning thought and prefer hate to be scraped across the floor all the way to the jury, I do recognize the unfortunate necessity of such a law.

So of course we should probably be heaping spoonfuls bit of laud on our elected officials, up to and including President Obama. Right?

I am sorry if I am not full throated in my praise nor fully vested in my admiration but I find myself asking the question: Is this really enough, or is it a solution at all?

I would suggest that much of the source of problems lies in the manner in which segments of the population can be made ‘the other.’

In my opinion the real solution towards violence committed against those of differing sexual orientation or gender is not found in hate crime legislation but in making full and legitimate the rights of these citizens of our nation. I believe violence towards this community is tacitly legitimized by the way our society had identified them and by how our government has legally defined them as different.

If gays and lesbians are not allowed to marry than we are depriving their relations of having any meaning in the eyes of the nation. Were we truly a nation that respected a separation between church and state and clung keenly to the clause against the establishment of religion in the first amendment than this mandated opposition to same-sex union would be obliterated with the first religion to file grievance with the federal court system. But it is the lack of legitimacy that deprives people of their place in society and somehow makes them easier targets and the exercise of crimes of hate against them more legitimate and more socially acceptable.

This is further aggravated by being denied the right to serve and protect this country. As has repeatedly stated with great principle, make no mistake and do not be deluded, gay men and women have served in the military as long as there has been a military. You owe to them your freedom as much as you claim to owe it to any person in the service. But by pretending they do not exist we do a disservice to their service and spit in the face of people that have marched and fought and supported this nation abroad no matter what you might think of the enterprise or mission in particular.

Not allowing gays to serve diminishes them in the eyes of the population. Stereotypes twine and entangle our minds and enshroud our perceptions limiting the great dearth of individuals that have served our nation into a class of people that exist largely on television that have little more to do with serious society than to fix up our homes, give us makeovers, or entertain us.

Moreover it creates a permanent disrespect based on the expectation that, since they do not serve legally or openly they obviously never have until possibly during Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (Don’t pursue).

The recognition of civil rights for other minorities was forwarded by the desegregation of the military. Is it this precedent that those who hate or make use of such hate fear? It seems strategically as likely as any other theory for opposition. Of course the gradual infiltration and takeover of the chaplain corps by certain more aggressive brands of evangelical Christianity may be responsible for creating another kind of internal resistance.

Ultimately though if the goal is reduction in violent crimes against gays and lesbians I would have to pose a question: Was racist violence not reduced when the rights of racial minorities were recognized with greater earnestness and certainty?

I just figure we should all have equal rights first.