Matt Mellot's letter to the Collegian last week is little less than despicable. Yet, as such, it is a beautiful example of a certain form of rhetorical juxtaposition of facts, which operates solely by tacit appeal to prejudice.

Matt, being a political science major, no doubt remembers the Willie Horton ad the campaign of Bush the first ran, and has learned his lessons well. Matt's letter makes no argument against the various justifications offered for hate crime legislation. Rather, he reports seeing a flier whereon hate crimes "were discussed" and "recalls" that a 13 year old was abused and killed by "two gays." Matt is dismayed that no one ever mentions this second story and wonders why no one concerned with hate crimes ever mentions it.

Well, this is because the second crime, though heinous, is not a hate crime. Hate crimes are those which function not only as attacks on an individual but on a group. They are crimes which function not only to harm an individual but, explicitly, to make fearful a group of people far beyond the immediate victim. Now Matt may not like the arguments offered for hate crime legislation, but he doesn't actually engage with them. Instead he juxtaposes Matthew Shepard's death with Jesse Dirkhising's and leaves it at that.

The only seed of an "argument" is the implication that gay people like to sodomize 13-year-old boys so why should we be so worried if they get occasional beatings? Matt will no doubt deny meaning any such thing, just as Bush's campaign denied that the Willie Horton ads had anything to do with race. He can, of course, deny it -- he's counting on readers to fill in the "argument" with their own prejudice. Shame on him for writing such a letter.