How those high-toned Canadian liberals react to the Rutgers peeping-Tom “hate crime” case

Paul T. writes:

I have been reading some of the posters’ comments on the websites of two Toronto papers—the liberal/left Globe and Mail and the allegedly conservative Toronto Sun about the conviction of Dharun Ravi [see VFR’s discussion]. What strikes me is the amount of sheer hatred directed at Ravi (“this vile piece of human garbage,” etc.). There are numerous comments essentially salivating over the prospect of Ravi being sodomized in prison (“serve him right” being the general tone). Another writes: “You’re right he doesn’t deserve 10 years. He deserves life without any chance of parole. Throw away the key and let him rot.”

Since there’s no death penalty in Canada, comments like these amount to saying that that invading the privacy of your gay college roommate should be treated in law just like raping and murdering teenagers (the Paul Bernardo case) or raping an eight-year-old, stuffing her into a plastic garbage bag, and then hammering her to death (the Teri-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty case). The posted comments don’t indicate whether or not the writers are homosexuals or heterosexual liberals. Either way, we have “liberated” something extraordinarily dark and malicious. If the politicians who decriminalized homosexuality could have foreseen the results, would they have done so?

A further thought: many of the posters take it for granted that Ravi “caused” Tyler Clementi’s suicide. If we are looking at all contributing causes, should we not also point an accusing finger at the Pride/Rainbow/homosexualist movement, which encourages open expression of homosexuality and opposed “Don’t ask, don’t tell”? If Clementi had followed a DADT policy, he would have had his assignations off-campus or in any case well out of sight of his roommate. As it was, he took the Rainbow/liberal advice, conducting his sex life under his roommate’s nose, and courting the risk of exposure which it seems he ultimately couldn’t handle. Under DADT, he wouldn’t have been webcammed and (if we accept that this was the proximate cause of his suicide) would still be alive. The decision to jump off a bridge was his alone, but if we’re taking account of all those who contributed to that decision, we’ll have to put Dan Savage—the homosexual sex-advice columnist who vigorously propagandized against DADT—in the dock, too.

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Andrew H. writes:

The entire case fascinates and disturbs me. I purposely don’t engage in conversations about these types of things at work (I work at an ad agency in Manhattan), but I’ve heard coworkers echo the same sentiments expressed in the Canadian papers that Paul T describes. Ravi’s ethnicity doesn’t matter, a “hate crime” against gays trumps nearly everything and the narrative and guidelines for discourse were set in stone long ago. Dissent is not even conceivable, let alone tolerated, by those so eager to blame the evil homophobic roommate for Clementi’s death.

Ken Hechtman’s “what-if” thought experiment [in the earlier entry on the verdict] was very instructive, but I’d like to suggest another one—What if Clementi was a heterosexual with, let’s say, an unattractive and obese girlfriend and Ravi made hurtful remarks about the girlfriend as part of his peeping-tom antics. What if Clementi felt humiliated and killed himself shortly after finding out Ravi’s prank. Is Ravi responsible for his death? Was a hate crime committed? And what if they weren’t in college, but just happened to be roommates and the same situation transpired. I shouldn’t be surprised, but this time I truly can’t get my head around how people are so quick to divorce logic for the satisfaction of supposed moral righteousness. I feel badly for Dahrun Ravi.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 17, 2012 11:23 AM | Send