Is high school the answer to hate crimes?
by Jennifer Middleton and Matt Coles We heard a lot in the press this year about hate crimes. The brutal murder of Matthew Shepard was the most notorious anti-gay crime, but there were many others. Billy Joe Gaither was tortured and burned in his small rural hometown in Alabama for being gay. Gary Matson and Winfield Scott were killed in their bed in Happy Valley, California because they were gay. And these are only the crimes that were widely reported: unknown numbers more have been assaulted, beaten, left to die in anti-gay attacks around the nation. Many politicians and members of the lesbian and gay community responded by calling for new laws which would impose tougher sentences for crimes motivated by hate, so-called “hate crime” laws. Hate crime laws are not a bad idea. Their critics to the contrary, being beaten in a random attack and being beaten because you are black or Asian or Jewish or gay is not the same thing to the victim. Victims of hate crimes are more depressed, lose
