Can a Hate Crime be committed w/o. being a Crime?

Yesterday, New Jersey's Attorney General, Paula Dow, hailed the indictment of a nineteen year old Rutgers University freshman student who allegedly secretly video taped his gay roommate's romantic encounter with another young man and put the film on the internet. Shortly after this horrific outrage, the gay student killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. The A.G.'s statement reads: "This indictment is an important step in this heartbreaking case. N.J.'s bias law recognizes the terrible harm caused by acts of bigotry and hatred and imposes harsher punishment on those who commit such crimes." Ok, let me parse this public policy pronouncement, after emphasizing that the death of Tyler Clementi is the most terrible harm his family, friends and community will ever have be suffer, and they all will suffer every single day of their lives.

My objections is to the prosecutor's demand for increased punishment premised on the purported anti-gay motivation of the defendant. Would it be less heinous had the defendant's harassment been based upon his roommate's height, weight, poor complexion or any of a myriad of other personal traits for which petty and mean spirited individuals choose to exploit in an effort to ridicule others.

In my freshman year, attending a very rural southern college, I myself was subjected to "hazing", "harassment"and "ridicule" for what I perceive to this very day, 44 years later, to have been prompted by various fellow student biases - yankee in the south, an obnoxious N.J. yankee in the south, being the two most significant causes which still resonate in my mind. As I am still here (probably as obnoxious as then, but that's another topic), my parents were spared the unbearable grief of the Clementi family. Nonetheless, had I succumbed to the terror, would Equal Justice under Law have been achieved were the culpable defendant(s) given a sentence one half, or one third, or any significantly lesser penalty than anyone who may be convicted for the death of Tyler Clementi. Are the lives of obnoxious New Jerseyians less entitled to the protection and deterrence afforded by our nation's criminal law? I think not.

Now, when the law specially favors group victims, society creates a goodly number of pragmatic obstacles to achieving any justice, let alone equal justice. Just one example of this pernicious consequence - in picking the jury for the Tyler Clementi trial, should gay persons be excluded from the jury pool, or will heterosexuals be perceived to be disqualified to so serve fairly. Just asking ...

Why Jackie Robinson Still Matters

As we celebrate Palm Sunday, some of U by wearing frilly flower laced bonnets, others by communing with Mother Nature, I felt it timely to deliver another sermonette, a eulogy even to the Great Jackie Robinson. Almost as an inspiring figure as Martin Luther King, Mr. Robinson also died too young, but unlike Dr. King, for awhile his life and achievements seemed to be largely overlooked. Major League baseball has done itself and America proud by having an annual "Day of Rememorance" on April 15th, the day Jackie Robinson first entered a big league ball game in 1947. This yearly honoring of Jackie Robinson makes Tax Day sting just a little less.

Some years ago, I read a short story of Mr. Robinson's challenges in becoming the first "negro" to play in the majors. Branch Rickey, as I recall, was then the Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who selected Him to be the person to break the color barrier in professional sports. Knowing the vile, hateful receptions Mr. Robinson would have to endure, Mr. Rickey sought to "steel" him by sharing with him a number of passages from the book "The Life of Christ", written by the noted English Theologian, Frederic William Farrar. The Farrar quote that I found most compelling reads something like: "Even the brute and the coward secretly admire a man of integrity, who lives daily his principles of justice and honor, and does not answer their evil in kind. That rare courage, that ability to truly turn the other cheek, separates the strong from their weaker inferiors". Wow, that certainly is an empowering message - right out of the classic Hollywood Masterpiece "A Man for All Seasons", as is Mr. Jackie Robinson.

One other strong man of character also deserves mention here, Pee Wee Reese, Dodger teammate to Jackie Robinson. A son of the old South, Mr. Reese proclaimed to the fans, opposing players, the press and most importantly to all his other teammates, that in Jackie Robinson, he saw neither a black or white man, but instead he saw a gifted baseball player whose only color of importance was Dodger Blue.

I was fortunate myself, 20 years later in 1967, to participate in an analogous civil rights moment in the new South, where Davidson College's All-American basketball player, Mike Maloy, integrated my school's athletic programs, as one of the very first blacks to play in the Southern Conference. Recently, the College honored Mike, who died in 2009, with a permanent exhibit in the Baker Sports Complex. Having seen first hand some of the racial challenges Mike Maloy confronted - two decades after Jackie Robinson so courageously set the paths for others to follow - I am empowered even today by both of their lives of integrity and honor.

If its a Sunday morning in America...

... then it is time for a short homily, a sermon even. Ok here goes; its time to get real about the nation's current malaise, a dearth of leadership in every top federal office from executive, legislative all the way to the judiciary. While the President may be correct that Libya is nothing more than a "turd sandwich", (his appellation, not mine) this assessment does not make it any easier to swallow BY U and ME, without any public involvement or consent of the governed to be force fed joining a foreign civil war in which inevitably civilians will die for years no matter who "wins". Congress has an absolute Constitutional duty to end this misadventure or approve it explicitly, any refusal to address this war (started by our first sitting President to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize since Teddy Roosevelt, should my memory serve well) will reveal these legislators caring more about their own re-elections than they do about the Nation's security.

Now, turning to the Judiciary ... Oh well, as I do not live in a Constitutional Republic, but a Amazonian Dictatorship and the One who Must be Obeyed just issued her first order of the day, I am so out of here now. The failings of the Judiciary shall have to wait ...