re: #73 robdouth

I cannot know how you feel, having not shared your experiences, but I believe that proper enforcement of the law doesn’t change just because you enact more laws.

Go back and see just what happened in the civil rights movement in the 1960’s when southern local law enforcement and the KKK were often identical. It took federal laws and federal intervention to deal with absolute local power corruption that was systematically disenfranchising African Americans as well as murdering them (some locals had less than 1% of the African American population registered to vote. Questions asked by registrars included “How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?”. The question was, of course, impossible and any answer would then disqualify the person since they “failed” the exam)

The situation is different here with GLBT people, but concerns with law enforcement are similar in some ways, since police investigators are often unwilling to seriously pursue crimes against GLBT people. Also, as mentioned before, there are still situations where juries refuse to convict based simply upon religious or other social reasons.

If GLBT people cannot get constitutionally guaranteed equal protection from the local authorities, than we have little choice but to pursue it at a higher level. I am not willing to be treated as a lesser person, and I will not be quiet when crimes against other GLBT people are ignored. If that annoys Libertarians who dislike “hate crimes” laws, than they might be better served to make them obsolete and help us make law enforcement get off their jelly donut asses and do their goddamned jobs!