Hate crimes are crimes committed because of hatred for members of certain social groups.  The premise of hate crimes legislation is that crimes committed from such motives are worse than other crimes.  Consider.

A man beats up a woman because he hates women.  Hate crime.

A prayer frequently offered during worship:  “May our country’s leaders end their bickering and work to solve the country’s problems.”

No doubt this petition is innocently intended.  However, its premises seem to be as follows.

1.  Politicians quarrel not because they have fundamentally opposed views of what their job is and how to do it, but because they don’t want to do their job.

Monday – student letter day!

Question:

On Tuesday and Wednesday I criticized the use of evil means to combat the evil of abortion.  Let’s return to the evil of abortion itself.

This question is from a doctoral candidate at the University of Maastricht, Netherlands.

Mondays are reserved for letters, and yes, these are both real letters.  I received them some years ago when I was writing an online column just for college students.

I think it is time to stop cowering.  Why was it so easy for barbarians to storm the gates of marriage?  In great part because the institution’s so-called defenders were paralyzed by fear of being on the “wrong side of history.”