Crime is crime.  Murder is murder.  Bullying is bullying.  

I used to get whaled on in Jr. High because I was short.  I mean SHOOOOORT.  Every day I took a man-sized beating.  Every single school day for two years.  

One day it was so severe I wound up in the hospital.  (Ah, those were the days.)

Think those kids went to town on me because they LIKED me?  Because they APPRECIATED our differences?

And yet no one has ever sponsored hate crimes legislation to protect short kids.  (Short kids don't have a lobby or a billionaire sugar daddy buying his own legislature specifically to sponsor that sort of a bill.)  Nor should they.  If you put a Jr. High kid in the hospital for ANY reason you're a louse and a jerk and you get what's coming to you.  The why doesn't matter.

ACTIONS have consequences.  Period.  

ACTIONS.