There are a few things that have stood out to me in my campaign for equality for the pink community. Of these, one that stands out the most is the liturgy used by people who fight against gay rights - who call equal civil rights for GLBTI people "special rights". This is of course a horrific lie - made all the more so by the underlying hatred and malice concealed by the simplistic and exclusionary reasoning they employ.
You see, whether they agree with equal civil rights for gay people, or not - the truth is that heterosexual people are a majority - a majority which is largely in control of society. As such, those among them who are anti-gay and anti-diversity are through their narrow-minded reactionary stance, trying to protect their own status. In plain English, they are the ones who have "special rights", not us - and this explains their drive to prevent us from achieving true legal and social equality with them - because it is fairly plain to see that many of them, particularly on religious grounds, view having equal rights with us as "persecution".
Aside from this blatant lie and self-deception on their part, the second thing that stands out to me is the fact that they object to any law which prevents the expression of hatred against any portion of the populace, not because it protects all parties equally against hate crime and hate speech - but simply because it prevents them from doing so as well.
You can almost taste the bile in every sentence they use, where the words "hate speech" reside within quotation marks.
Hate crimes laws are intended to protect all people, all groups - from the expression of hatred, or harassment. This means that if anyone does so on the basis of either race, religion, language, culture, gender or sexual orientation, such expression, whether verbal or in the form of violence - is classified as a criminal offense. You would think the inclusion of "religion" in the groups protected would make them happy, but in vain.
No, they still want to have the freedom to attack people on the basis of sexual orientation. Thus, they see hate crimes legislation as a threat to their "freedom of religion". Is this because the expression of hatred is integral to their religion? I don't know, is it? Some people seem to be convinced that it is.
If you think your religion calls you to hate other people, then perhaps either you have the wrong religion - or you have your religion wrong.
I can, from a logical standpoint, see nothing wrong with a law that protects everybody - and criminalizes the public expression of hatred or harassment or violence against any one group by any other group. Is this form of law in fact not a social expression of a larger scale "non-aggression pact" between states? It doesn't mean people have to like each other, it just means that people who are different can co-exist peacefully and in equality. In fact, the only reason I can see somebody objecting to such an arrangement, is because they want to be free to indulge in the very thing this law is designed to prevent. Hatred.
In short, they object to the law, because they want to be above the law.
Another sore point on this topic for me is the obvious oversight on their part - on the subject of sexual orientation being covered by hate crimes law, without stating WHICH sexual orientation - that it protects straight people just as much as it does gay and bisexual people. So, in event somebody attacks straight people on the basis of their orientation, they are covered just as well as somebody attacked for being gay. How about that?
Obviously they didn't think of that, because to them hate speech means common slander and threatening or insulting language - and hate crime as burning down churches or persecuting Christian missionaries for pushing loaded bibles on defenseless children in China - except when hate comes from a religious angle - or their religion happens to agree with it. Nevertheless, they object to hate crime laws anyway, because they feel sufficiently covered by existing laws which prevent discrimination on religious grounds, but which allow discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity - thus they are the ones with legal protection and we are not, ergo we are the ones seeking equality and they are the ones with "special rights".
How I love logic.
Thank you, Mister Spock - you can keep the ears.
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