Last week, this campus learned that two University of Wisconsin students and their friends allegedly vandalized the door and surrounding posters of an Ogg Hall LGBT liaison in a most reprehensible manner. Also disturbing, though, is that all four students involved have been charged with felony hate crimes.

Clearly, this criminal activity should not be condoned. If these four students did indeed commit the crimes they have been charged with, they should be punished by both the university and the state for their actions. And the punishment received should be commensurate with others who have committed crimes of similar nature. In any situation of law-breaking, citizens should be punished for the crimes they commit. Under no circumstances, however, should they receive criminal-penalty enhancements for the content of their thoughts.

Hate crime laws should not be used in criminal prosecution.

Such laws are a direct infringement on the First Amendment rights of the citizens of this nation, specifically their rights to free speech and expression. Even more disturbing is that the impetus behind these laws is to criminalize the thoughts of an individual in addition to punishing their unlawful actions. When hate crime laws are enforced, society is engaging itself in little more than thought control — the antithesis of basic liberty.

It may be difficult to find a situation in which hate does not permeate the mind of an individual committing a crime targeted against another person. Yet hate crime laws seek to endow certain individuals in society with protected-class status — a class that is considered more privileged — by punishing those who commit crimes against them more harshly.

In the end it is our belief that the abhorrent speech must be protected so as to ensure the security of the most civil.