You may well have heard of the upset over Rep. Sally Kern

griping about the homosexual agenda, etc. Today there was a protest by various groups/people at the state capitol basically demanding she meet with them and apologize or resign. Only reason I'm saying anything about this is the leader of one of the groups said, near as I can recall, "I believe in the First Amendment, but not in hateful(or hurtful) speech"*. Which really, truly pisses me off. You, you effing liar, do NOT believe in free speech: you believe in freedom for speech which meets your standards. Screw you.

It will not surprise you to hear that he also then demanded that the Legislature immediately pass a 'comprehensive hate-crimes law to protect all Oklahomans'. Which is also bullshit. I think somewhere in the early history of this blog I once stated my opinion on this, but I'll cover it here to be sure:
I think hate crime laws are a very bad idea for two reasons. First, you presume to give someone extra punishment based on what you think, or believe, was in his mind at the time. Second, you're basically setting up some groups as 'protected species', which is a PROFOUNDLY bad idea("You struck Subject A, and that's bad, but you then struck Subject B, and that is worse!" "Why?" "Because Subject B is a ' ', and it's worse for you to assault him than it is the other guy.")

I also note that the head of one group said they were going to request a meeting with Rep. Kern, but didn't go to her office to do it: the did it in a group in front of the Capitol where they could have lots of cameras and reporters around.

Screw it. I've got guns to clean.

Forgot to mention, found Plumb Bob Blog yesterday on a link from Day by Day, he has some thoughts on the matter here.

*This is 'as best I recall' because I heard this stuff on radio news today, but after looking around a bit I couldn't find an article with the quotes, and I ran out of time. Did I mention guns to clean? Lots more fun that digging for this.