Letter fails to get columnist's point

Ms. Candace Webb, it is obvious from your letter in the March 22 Exponent that you could not control your emotions long enough to read more than a few sentences of Mr. Clift's Feb. 28 Exponent column. Not anywhere in your letter did you refute in any way, or submit any evidence even remotely indicating that anything in Mr. Clift's column was wrong or misleading. Maybe you just failed to get the points he was making, which are worries shared by a lot of people.

One of the worries people have about hate crime legislation is that it is a step toward creating a "thought police." This is not a baseless fear due to the fact that there is no way in which to prove what a person was thinking or feeling when they commit a crime. Even if a person admits that it was a hate crime, you have to see that they are most likely mentally unstable and their word cannot be taken as fact.

Imagine the situation where a Christian fears for a homosexual's immortal soul and inadvertently instigates a fight. This may be a definition for Mr. Murray's "love crime" (March 21 Exponent). The hate crime laws should not apply but given the temperament of people today you know it will be invoked. This type of legislation can be used to redirect intolerance instead of punishing it.

Now for the real fear. A person kills someone not protected by hate crime legislation and another person kills someone who is. Person No. 2 can get the greater punishment whether it was a hate crime or not. It may not matter whether person No. 1 enjoys killing and intends to do it again or if person No. 2 is truly remorseful. Doesn't sound fair, does it?

Richard Hayward

Graduate Student

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