#hate law

1999, What's So Bad About Hate - New York Times.

He wrote: "I used to be opposed tout court to [anti-discrimination law] on libertarian grounds (and not just for gays but for everyone apart from those subjected to the unique historical burden of slavery and segregation). Virtually Normal also makes the case that the government has no right to compel private citizens not to discriminate against gays when it discriminated so perniciously against gays in civil marriage and military service. But two things have changed my mind over the years. The first, quite simply, is that the libertarian position on such crimes is largely moot – for good and ill. The sheer weight of anti-discrimination law is so heavy and so entrenched in our legal culture and practice, no conservative would seek to abolish it. It won’t happen. And if such laws exist, and are integral to our legal understanding of minority rights, then to deny protection to one specific minority (which is very often the target of discrimination) while including so many others, becomes bizarre at best, and bigoted at worst. Leaving gays out sends a message, given the full legal context, that they don’t qualify for discrimination protection, while African-Americans and Jews and Catholics and Latinos and almost everyone else is covered by such protections. It’s foolish to stick to a principle, however sincere, in the face of this reality. Secondly, the federal government has ceased its own discrimination policies in marriage and military service and therefore now has some small sliver of moral standing to lecture private individuals across all states. My objections twenty years ago are now moot. Put those two developments together and I would not vote against ENDA if I, God help us, were a Senator. But I would vote for it with my eyes open. I don’t think it will make much difference in reality just as I don’t believe hate crime laws make much difference in reality. Of course that’s an empirical question and I promise readers horrified by my luke-warm support of this that I will gladly recant such skepticism if ENDA truly does lead to a flurry of successful suits across the country against anti-gay bias." In full: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/11/03/the-case-against-enda/

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wow i learned one thing at law school at least wow

...peeling it off now.