Sunday, October 10, 2010

Idiot's guide to hate crimes

The title is misleading, I do not intend to provide a guide of any kind related to hate crimes, what I can tell you with some degree of certainty is that if someone cannot tell what a hate crime is , they are idiots.
Recently the very tragic suicide of a Rutger's freshman(Tyler Clementi), has been in the news. The specifics of the case are, his roomate , all of 19 used a webcam to web cast a sexual encounter the individual had with another man. This gross and criminal invasion of privacy, spurred the young victim to take his own life. Various quarters have labelled this a 'hate' crime. I do not mean to trivialize what happened , which seems such a waste of a promising young life. Having said that , lets assume the same scene playing out in 1980 before webcams and webcasts, lets imagine the roomate walked in on Clementi Making out with a man, and he goes on to tell someone else and soon everyone on campus knows, would this still be a hate crime?
So what about the roomates actions suggests that he hated gay people? Yes he was a moron to do what he did, but are you so shocked in a era where Big Brother like shows are a staple?
Finally to put my arguments in perspective a hate crime in the classical mould