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Hate crime law divides us

It grieves me sorely to read an opinion piece such as that of Bruce H. Deboskey which essentially calls for the abandonment of equality under the law (“Finally, a hate crimes bill that will protect victims,” Opinion, Oct. 27). When he refers to “victimized groups” and “biased-motivated violence” he is advocating law that is centered on personal identity factors such as race, age, sexual preferences, etc., thus ignoring the one and only “identity” that we Americans have in common and from which all rights properly follow — our U. S. citizenship. When Deboskey applauds “hate crime” legislation, he automatically places one person's body, security and welfare in a superior (or inferior) position under the law. That is a form of class warfare the world has seen quite enough of. How does one legally define “hate?” There never can be a legal definition simply because “hate,” like “love,” “jealousy,” “fear” and “joy” exists only in the mind of the holder or beholder. Any crime of violence deserves the full treatment of the law on an equal basis. To base that law on subjective identities or motivations can only lead to that infamous “thought control” so amply demonstrated in George Orwell's “1984,” where a Big Brother tyranny of government holds sway over one's mental processes, reflected in real life so vividly in the psychiatric wards of the Gulag Archipelago. Abandoning equality under the law has severe consequences in our society. We in Colorado can point to our own very real examples of where equality under the law has been replaced by political agendas of the favored few. The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs last year became an embarrassment to the state when it allowed the pillorying of the student body president for exercising his right to hold an opinion about homosexuals. And then there is the Colorado Anti-discrimination Act (CADA), as amended, which now includes some 20 personal identities that form “protected classes” that somehow deserve more recognition under the law than the rest of us. By basing criminality on such language as “the perception thereof” CADA on its face pits Colorado citizens against each other in a predatory spoils system that violates our fundamental rights of property, rights of ownership, rights of association and even our moral sovereignty by selecting out which of us enjoys what rights under what circumstances. No, Mr. Deboskey, “hate crime” legislation only magnifies the inequality under the law that you seem to have either forgotten about or have never understood. Whitney Galbraith Colorado Springs