At the risk of setting off the perpetually offended, I have to say I have never been a fan of hate crime laws. The intent is fine but reality never measures up to the vision.

The benefits called by Ted Pitts of the Chamber of Commerce are silly at best. I don’t think anyone, company or individual, relocates to a state based on whether or not that state has passed hate crime legislation.

It is likely important to persons who have been targeted in the past. And who could blame them? But for most folks such legislation doesn’t carry much weight.

That doesn’t mean that hate crime laws don’t have value. I think that we all would like to see haters slapped down pretty hard. The problem is this: It’s a short leap from a “hate crime” to “hate speech”. And then someone decides what hate speech is. Is “America is a great country” hate speech?

How about “Police lives matter”? Or “My country right or wrong”?

I’ll bet that one makes them crazy

I am a strong advocate of the 1st Amendment. That means that I am willing to tolerate speech that I not only disagree with but that which I find offensive, even truly dreadful, or dangerous. Why? Because that is the purpose of the 1st Amendment.

If it only protected speech that you like, then it would have no purpose. In many other places around the world “hate speech” is criminally prosecuted as a hate crime. And that means that some politician or some non-elected bureaucrat has decided that your words are a punishable crime. If the politicians can tell you what you can or cannot say, then personal liberty is lost. Perhaps forever. No thanks.

John White, Lexington