The Examiner Should Be Ashamed

You will not often hear me describe myself as "offended" by something. It usually seems to me to be a way for people to call upon some principle that they may or may not subscribe to, in order to score points in an argument. But I am offended by this one, I can't even understand why a professional newspaper would publish this trash. Examiner columnist Gregory Kane is taking a bizarre and hateful view of the Rosedale beating of Chrissy Polis.

Must America's "hate crimes" brigade rush to judgment before all the facts are in?

Apparently they must, but that's exactly what you'd expect from people who want to criminalize thoughts, not actions. And nothing illustrates the rush-to-judgment mentality more than what happened in a Baltimore-area McDonald's in mid-April.

The incident was captured on a cell phone video. It was posted on You Tube and went viral, so this isn't just a local story any longer.

The video shows two women beating a "woman" named Chrissy Polis. I put the word "woman" in quotation marks because Polis wasn't born a woman. He's what's known as "transgendered." 'Hate crime' justice is no justice at all

And someone who intentionally refers to a transgender person by the wrong pronouns is what's known as a "bigot."

There is an argument that the assault will be prosecuted, that hitting and kicking people is a crime already and there is no need to add hate-crime charges. That is a fair argument, and we can have a civil discussion about it. At this point in history, the American people do support the idea that it is a worse crime to harm someone because of their religion, race, ethnicity, and other characteristics. Maybe that will change, fine, the public can talk about it and maybe public opinion will go the other way.

But we must not allow public discourse to be hijacked by this kind of self-serving inflammatory language.

He continues.

According to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, "transgender" is defined as "of, relating to or being a person who identifies with or expresses a gender identity that differs from the one which corresponds to the person's sex at birth."

Polis has been repeatedly referred to in news stories as a "woman." Not because he was born a woman, and not because he has two x chromosomes that women have, but merely because he thinks he is.

I'm sorry, but buying into Polis' notion that he's a woman is like asking me to call my weird Uncle Herman "your highness" just because he takes a notion that he's the Emperor Napoleon. I think I'll pass on that one.

Kane has a primitive sense of gender identity. I would be pretty sure he would not be able to explain the facts that Montgomery County tenth graders learn about intersex conditions and transgender topics.

And face it, Kane doesn't know what kind of chromosomes Ms. Polis has. Gender would not be a useful concept if the only "real" criterion required a bunch of laboratory equipment. Chrissy Polis is a woman by every practical standard.

The opinion that is being expressed here in the pages of The Examiner is an example of that strange modern philosophy that sees ignorance as a sort of ideal. We should not have to learn how other people live, it is not worthwhile to consider how the world looks through another person's eyes, the world must be exactly what it appears to us at our first glance. It follows that education is a waste of time and scientific findings are suspect.

But Polis is transgendered, based on the definition of the term. Is that why the two women beat him? Well, we haven't heard from them yet.

One is only 14 and Baltimore County prosecutors haven't decided yet to charge her as an adult. Teonna Monae Brown, 18, is being held without bail and is charged with one count of first-degree assault and two counts of second-degree assault.

Oh good, if you want to know why these people beat up Ms. Polis, you should ask them -- don't watch the video, which depicts a clear and shocking act of hatred. Ask them. I'm sure their explanation after a couple of weeks in jail will be more accurate than the things they were saying while the beating took place.

All the facts about what happened and why aren't even close to being in, yet some have already raised the "hate crimes" banner.

What happened to Polis was clearly wrong, and the suspects have already been charged with assault. But for some, that simply isn't enough.

Because Polis is transgendered, he's entitled to extra protection, according to the "hate crimes" police. Had Polis, who's white, been just an actual white woman taking a beat-down because of the color of her skin, not her sexuality, we wouldn't have heard word one from anybody about filing "hate crimes" charges against Polis' assailants.

This intentional misuse of pronouns is offensive, and The Examiner should issue an apology. Chrissy Polis is a postoperative transsexual, a woman by every measure.

Here's the problem. Kane hates transgender people, he refuses to respect them, he treats their real-life dilemma as if it were a trick or something superficial. His hatred very much weakens his argument against charging these assailants with a hate crime. In fact, I'd have to say that he proves by his own example exactly why hate crimes exist and why they are necessary.

Quick, when was the last time you ever heard any of these "hate crimes" folks call for "hate crimes" charges to be lodged against so-called "people of color" whose victims were white?

President Obama's daughters will be old enough to run for president by the time you come up with an answer to that one.

The answer, for most of you, is probably never, because "hate crimes" lobbyists seldom, if ever, urge prosecutors to file "hate crimes" charges against assailants whose victims are white and heterosexual.

Now this is interesting. I did not know this. I am going to cite a publication that Gregory Kane would appreciate, the World Net Daily, from 2006:

WASHINGTON – The most likely victim of a hate crime in the U.S. is a poor, young, white, single urban dweller, according to an analysis of Justice Department statistics collected from between July 2000 and December 2003.

A November report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics detailing a study of 210,000 "hate crimes" a year during that period has gone virtually unreported by the U.S. press.

But it does contain some surprising numbers. While race is, by far, the No. 1 factor cited as the reason for hate crimes, blacks are slightly less likely to be victims and far more likely to be perpetrators, the statistics show. 'Hate crime' victims: Young, poor, white

According to the FBI, this article says, most hate crime victims are white. It doesn't break down by sexual orientation, but I will go out on a limb and say that most hate-crime victims are heterosexual and cisgendered, too.

It's interesting that Kane does not cite the statistics on this, but rather says "Quick, when was the last time you ever heard..." Again, this is the citation of ignorance as authority. If you haven't heard of it, it didn't happen. There is nothing more to know, nothing to gain by looking it up. You already know everything you need to know. The word "quick" in that sentence is important, cognitive effort is unnecessary.

This pathetic Examiner article ends this way:

For such victims, good, old regular assault, battery and/or murder charges will have to do. Here's what "hate crimes" lobbyists really believe, deep in their hearts:

When a crime happens to someone in my group, or someone in a group I deeply sympathize with, then that's a "hate crime."

When the same crime happens to anyone else, that's simply the victim's tough luck.

If that doesn't quite smack of "equal justice under the law," then that's because it isn't. It smacks of exactly what it is: unequal justice and egregiously preferential treatment.

All those who advocate that so-called "hate crimes" laws be on our books need to stand up and admit that unequal justice and preferential treatment are exactly what they want.

There is some irony here in the fact that Kane himself is black, as were the assailants of Chrissy Polis. If he acts according to his own stated belief, then this article is really just a way for him to support members of his own group. He is behaving just a like a "'hate crimes' lobbyist."

Let's not go there. Because he's wrong. You will find that the vast majority of people who call the beating of Chrissy Polis a hate crime are not transgender. It's a stupid argument.

I do think The Examiner should apologize for this piece and meditate carefully on their role in supporting hatred and violence in our already-trouble society. This writer has the right to express an opinion about hate crime laws, and The Examiner, being a mostly-conservative publication, is expected to publish articles opposing hate crime legislation and enforcement. But this writer is over the line. He has the right to believe these things about our transgender friends and neighbors, he has the right to talk this way in his private life, but The Examiner is making a big mistake in publicizing and promoting this kind of destructive ugliness.