Is First Amendment viewpoint-discriminatory against antigayspeech?

[Jean Dudley]

On Nov 7, 2007, at Wednesday,November 7, 2007,3:28 PM, Volokh, Eugene  
wrote:

> 	Help me out here:  The major purveyors of informal violence --
> murders, robberies, assaults, and the like -- are *not* street thugs?
> Who are they then?  The Phelps crowd?  Politically motivated right- 
> wing
> activists?
>
> 	(I should say that as to one important class of informal
> violence, which is rape, bedroom thugs -- date-rapists -- are a more
> major purveyor than street thugs; but street thugs are a major  
> category
> even there, and *the* major category as to the other kinds of  
> violence.)
>
> 	Eugene
>

Let's turn it over on its head:  Are the Ku Klux Klan "street  
thugs"?  Were the men who murdered Matthew Shepard "street thugs"?  I  
think not.  I also think there is a difference between the two  
groups:  One has a long-standing history, a complex organization, the  
other was simply (!) a matter of mob mentality on a smaller scale.   
Oddly enough, neither group would be called street thugs by other  
members of their community.  They's just a bunch of good ol' boys.

I think what's missing here is a distinction that "informal violence"  
by itself connotes random violence;  It must be qualified with the  
word "organized", and compared to "Official (or "formal") violence,  
defined as organized and sanctioned by law and or government.

In closing, the concept of "street thug" is misleading.  Only a  
miniscule amount of violence is perpetrated by the truly antisocial,  
psychopathic, or homeless.

Jean Dudley.