Hate Crime by a Gay Teen

A 19 year-old Chicago teen recently beat his 51 year-old Catholic neighbor woman to death when she tried to get him to change his sexual orientation.

I first heard about this via this Rod Dreher post at the Corner, and again today at this CNS story, this Washington Times story, and this NRO story by Rod.

Several groups are upset that this crime -- which they argue is just as much a hate crime as crimes which have been committed against gays -- is not getting national media coverage. But what do they expect? The print media and the networks aren't going to treat it as such... minorities are only the victims of hate crimes, right?

Meanwhile, some bloggers are saying unbelieveable things about this case. After writing in this post, "Where do I send a check for [the teen's] defense fund?", "barry" replies to a commentor thus:

"Hyperbole and sarcasm carry badly across the 'net. This is a blog, not a newspaper.

"I don't condone murder, but I feel sympathy for people who are verbally assaulted by homophobes relying on their religion. We live in a country where the President and his party, plus quite a few Democrats, think gay people should go to jail.

"I grew up in a place where people believed that blacks were inferior, and the Bible taught us so, and that anyone who killed a homosexual deserved very little punishment. As long as we live in a country where people can get away with murder by saying a gay man hit on them, I feel nothing but loathing for religious people like Stachowicz."

Yes, Mary Stachowicz hated gays, and we know this because she disapprovingly told the man who killed her, "'God wouldn't approve of the way you're living your life." The hatred just drips from the words, doesn't it?

You can also read what James Wagner has to say, if you want. It's pretty much more of the same, so I'll just ditto what I just said above.

Amazing, how we can justify objective evil in the name of our pet ideologies.