Column up - on "hate crimes"

I woke up early this morning to write this weeks column.

The topic is one that you've likely heard often in the news over the past month: hate crimes.

Here's an excerpt:

Am I to assume that random acts of assault are somehow less of an affront to social order than those based on contempt for an assumed quality or trait of the victim? Cause that seems to be the message I get from the mere existence of the phrase "hate crime."

Read the rest here.