NEWTON'S LAW: SEMANTICS: HATE IS NOT HATE WHEN JUSTICE IS NOT JUSTICE

In college, I wrote a friend and informed him I had "General Semantics" on my schedule. He mistakenly assumed I had joined the ROTC. ("Who is this General Semantics?" he asked.)

In fact, the course served me well, given my eventual occupation. Semantics is the branch of linguistics dealing with words' meanings and changes in meanings and the work here is often tied up in these idiomatic disputes.

If we are to believe in what we do, that the job of newspapering has some relevance and import, then we have to argue that the words we use mean something.

The exercise is not isolated to the newspaper business. In these days of untamed sensitivity, imprecision in language can get you picketed, blacklisted, investigated, fired or sued.

Loose lips may sink ships during wartime, but they can require you to seek legal advice these days if the words chosen offend certain of society's oppressed.

A word worth studying in Missouri this week is "hate," used dubiously as an adjective here, as in "hate crime."

Overlook for a moment the seeming redundancy of the phrase; there are crimes of passion so I suppose it's acceptable (if not altogether necessary) to specify that certain crimes are carried out with malice between perpetrator and victim.

The "hate crimes" in this case are those perpetrated against "legitimate" minorities. There's no argument that such offenses are (as long as we're stumbling through the thesaurus) heinous, ghastly, grizzly, atrocious, outrageous, odious and shocking. What has been a matter for peculiar governmental deliberations is the class of victim that should get full justice from this ghastliness, atrociousness, and so on.

Consider the stand taken by the city council in Independence, Mo. On Monday night, the council debated an ordinance to impose stiffer penalties for crimes committed out of hatred for certain groups of people.

For example, the law would impose an additional minimum penalty of $300 and 15 days in jail for any crime committed on the basis of a victim's race, color, religion, age, national origin or ethnic heritage.

Hearts of the council members were collectively in the right place. The ordinance was in response to a series of cross burnings and other acts of intimidation that took place in Independence this year. Their mission was noble.

Where the council bogged down, however, was in drawing the line for this special legal distinction. And after two hours of discussion, the body voted 5-2 not to include the words "sexual orientation" in the law.

Get it? In the world of hate crimes, homosexuals need not apply in Independence. Under the new law, gay bashing carries less weight than badgering a Methodist.

It is true, as one council member pointed out, that homosexuals have no fewer rights with this ordinance. It is likewise true that other groups, rightfully perplexed by crimes that target them because of who or what they are, have been placed at the head of the line for disbursement of justice.

It is like the law was written using the method of an old military joke. "All right," the drill sergeant would shout, "all those oppressed please step forward. ... Whoa, homosexuals, not so fast."

If the idea of our legal system is to provide equal protection under the law, what is a government doing splitting hairs about what is hate and what isn't? Some things you can't explain away as a problem of semantics.