Im not saying he is intentionally declaring it. I quote myself "I would think that this is related to the instinctive need of man to excel, whether against his own limitations...". He could be just trying to better himself, and he got killed for that.

*cyberhugs Trev* come on, were on the same side here.

Course we're on the same side, I'm just looking for clarification of what you mean, it doesn't make sense to me, what you're saying.
Like, you said that "When he decided to practice his right to express himself he might have inadvertently declared for acceptance from the other members of his local environment" that implies to me that Lawrence King was trying to act as though he was better than the other people around him, as opposed to how I see it as him just expressing himself, the same way other people express themselves. It just looks to me as though you're trying to put some of the blame on King simply because he did what everyone else is allowed to do.

That's not what I wanted to say at all.

I said I don't blame the victim and I mean it.

Ok. I'm sorry for misunderstanding you.

**hugs** we good?

Of course we are!

*bearhug*

Ok, I have the right to express myself. But lets say I find a guy attractive and this attraction isn't mutual and I keep flirting with him, he asks me to stop but I don't. What if I'm persistent about this to the point of obsession? Moreover, what if this is in an environment were one can't simply choose to avoid the aggressor (like being in the same class at school, for example) but the aggression persists? Obviously this aggression is wrong. It is unwelcome. Obviously it is also wrong to act out one's hostilities toward it, especially to take it to the extreme of killing someone -- but that is just it. How did this get to that point? Who had the responsibility to mediate and defuse this situation before it became violent? We're talking about children here, not "adults" who (we hope) have enough maturity to mediate their own behavior responsibly.

It's all very well and good decrying aggressive behaviour as the cause of this tragedy and saying we don't know whose behaviour started things off, and I agree that it can be the case that some gay guys act in an overly camp manner as a form of social defiance or aggression. However, any way you look at it this kind of provoking behaviour is very difficult to gauge and any behaviour can be seen as threatening by the insecure or mentally unbalanced - and by that I include extreme religious views which hate non-hetero sexual orientations. The fact that this guy may have been aggressively flaunting his sexuality or gender alignment in no way mitigates his murder. If a gay guy in court claimed that he killed a straight person for flaunting their sexuality, he would be called a nutcase and put in the slammer for a life sentence. There is no reason why the same shouldn't be the case the other way around. And what's more, the main issue here is the hypocrisy of the family, claiming that other people didn't do enough to protect their son when they threw him out of their house and severed contact. Whether or not we agree about the right to self expression in any form, I don't think any of us can say that the family have a leg to stand on here, am I right?

Certainly none of us are excusing or condoning violence, let alone murder.

Sabazius wrote:

<snip> the main issue here is the hypocrisy of the family, claiming that other people didn't do enough to protect their son when they threw him out of their house and severed contact. Whether or not we agree about the right to self expression in any form, I don't think any of us can say that the family have a leg to stand on here, am I right?

Certainly looks hypocritical to me and I suspect this case will underscore that hypocrisy. However, the hypocrisy of the family aside, from a legal stand point it is an interesting case. Whose responsibility was it to protect a child and should that responsibility include not only advising against but actually curtailing expressive behaviors that others find provocative? It's not like they didn't know this was a problem, right?

.

I would like to make this so much more complicated because it is something I have wrestled with in my thinking...

Where do my rights to freedom of speech end and your rights to be protected from my speech begin? Mr. Mike I hear you when you speak of the emotional and psychological pain of repression and the damage that causes. The question I have is how do we protect you, or others, from the harshness of attacks while still ensuring that others have the right to put down or reject certain ideas/ thoughts/ items.

I hear that everyone wants to protect my rights to not only my words but to express openly who I am. The trouble of where to draw the line comes in for me when someone else disagrees with my actions/ expressions/ words. How much and how are they able to express/ act out/ say against me and who/what/how I am before they have crossed some line? Will we ban certain words? Do we legislate tone? How do you clearly and accurately define the line and by whose subjective judgment to we abide? How do we choose these people? The bigger question, how do we make sure the group that makes these determinations is reflective of the community?

I fear we will find ourselves in a worse situation. In the US we had a series of major Freedom of Press/ Expression/ Speech cases around pornography. Justice Potter made the famous statement about defining pornography where he said he could not describe it but "I know it when I see it". From that a precedent was built of setting of "community standards" where by the people of that persons "community" defined what was acceptable. I would imagine that this would do us poorly as many communities would rule against us. So, how would we regulate it? Again, I can only imagine a world where we have more cases of "he offended me/ attacked me verbally/ his tone was wrong/bad" in our courts, possibly even out numbering the "he had one oz of pot" cases we have here in the US.

Suffice it to say, what I am asking, is how do we determine the fine line between your right to disagree and my right to not be emotionally/ physically/ psychologically harmed? That is the area where I get concerned, because being in the minority, I do not trust the majority to protect me.

@painter this is a good question. At what point, if any, do we hold the "victim" responsible for provoking the attack? While I do not believe that violence is acceptable in any form... the question must be asked, what responsibility does society have to protect someone from unwanted attention/words/ etc if any? When does freedom of speech cross the line to verbal harassment or even being verbally accosted?

@Sabazius - Ok I am not sure I can whole heartedly agree with you. I agree, his murder was an unacceptable over reaction to words and statements... unless his words and statements threaten someone? Within the narrow knowledge and context of this event I would agree with you, but what if he was inciting others to action? What if these actions were not responded to by the school or the authorities? In school you need not be gay to be labeled as such. I knew a kid that was out in school and his best friend- completely straight- suffered a worse fate than him for associating with him. What if King, or for the sake of argument another kid, was making propositions to him everyday in public that would/ could incite others to action and harsher words against the kid being propositioned. At what point would you hold the kid that is making unwanted propositions against someone responsible for the actions of others? To be clear, again I do not think any kinds of words, short of the threat of impending physical harm, warrants a physical violent response. The murder of King is NOT justifiable, but the question must be asked, if he, or another created a hostile environment are those in authority responsible for the fallout for failing to stop him from making unwanted advances and from stopping the other kids from harshly attacking the kid being propositioned? I am not sure yet, I have to think on it more. But I think it is a good question.

As for the parents in my mind the abrogated their right to say or do ANYTHING when they threw him out and distanced themselves. They can not hold others responsible for the actions they were unwilling/ unable/ unavailable to take to correct the situation, including the least of which would have been to involve the authorities or to move their child to a safer environment.




Just my two cents...

Sorry for the long post, I tend to bunch up my post to one big one... I will try to break them up but my work/ schedule does not always work that way.

Also, this is something I am passionate about because I think too often we overlook and try to simplify things or sadly enough in the US people just dont care...

@Sabazius: I wholeheartedly agree with you in your view that the motivations do have an impact on the crime, and that regardless of whether its perpetrated by a heterosexual or a homosexual as in your example, the hate crimes legislation protects BOTH of them.
@TheCptNemo: I believe that your rights end at my skin; you can say or do as you wish up to the point that it causes you to do something to me, or that it infringes upon my rights.

@ painter - I agree with you in the situation of King, these were children and in the end some if not most all of the blame/ responsibility/ accountability has to be laid at the feet of the adults in the situation. In the end for me the ultimate fault is with some parent/ adult/ teacher or several of them that failed to teach the assailant that violence is not an acceptable solution to the issue. These same people are responsible for having let the situation exist for so long that the assailant felt the only recourse he had to relieve the perceived pressure was violence. Long before then someone should have stepped in and not stopped King but intervened in the tension. If King was making unwanted passes then that behavior should have been addressed. Equally and ultimately more importantly the assailant should have been show that there were alternate methods of dealing with the situation. Finally, the assailant would also have to be taught that King has the right express who and how he is without fear of reprisal just as the assailant has the right to express himself but without violence.

The curiosity I have, is if it was adults, would our opinion of responsibility be different? As an adult would someone making unwanted passes be held to a higher level of accountability for having started/ created/ pressed a hostile situation. Again, the violence would not and should not tolerated as an acceptable means of response but would that person be held to be some what accountable? If not then where is the line between being a pest and inciting a riot/ violence/ actions? We have all snapped because of someones words. Some people in that situation lash out physically because they feel powerless to stop it any other way. If you push that person to that point when it is obvious they are becoming physically and emotional volatile do we hold them responsibility for some of the outcome?

@PainservedCold - If my rights end at your skin, then how do the words I say cause me to be held to a higher level of accountability then someone who said nothing during violence. To be clear, if you are beaten by two people- one who yells faggot and one who does not then why is one held to a higher level of blame? Also, if he has the right to yell faggot while he is not hitting you (because it stops at your skin) then how can he be more guilty for doing it while hitting you? That ultimately is what I can not reconcile about hate crimes laws.