Shaking down the school board turns Dr. King’s comment on its head.

Michelle Obama should let local schools decide what local kids eat.

Our congressional reps talk tough on spending, except when it comes to their district.

They’re going to water down March Madness.

‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…’

With Thomas Jefferson’s immortal text in 1776, America was born; a nation that sought to uphold democracy and freedom for its citizens as the antithesis to England’s monarchy.

Flash forward 87 years later – November 19, 1863 – to President Abraham Lincoln standing on a battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Though he said the world would little remember what he said there that day, his words echoed the stronger notion that America is a country built on equality.

‘Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’

These sentiments, repeated again by Dr. Martin Luther King during his ‘I have a dream’ speech, speak to the goal of our Founding Fathers to create a nation that treated every citizen with same; that each were afforded the same right to freedom from persecution, no matter the basis. These men travelled from England to establish a new nation that was free from class. Although their definition of ‘class’ may have changed with the times, the sentiment toward the segregation of class in America remains the same.

Though hate crimes legislation was intended to defend those whom some thought needed added protection, it has created a new class divide in this country: those whose lives and liberties appear more important than another’s.

Hate crimes legislation isn’t new, of course. Enacted after Dr. King’s assassination, Congress and state legislators began to create special protections for people based on their race, gender, religion or disabilities.

In Ohio, we have “ethnic intimidation” laws which carry a penalty of an added degree to any charge where discrimination was thought to play a role in victim selection. For example, let’s suppose two men get into a fight and the second man is seriously injured. The first man who threw the punch would be charged with felonious assault, which in Ohio is a second degree offense punishable by two to eight years in prison and a financial fine. But suppose the second man claims the fight began because he was Jewish. The charge now jumps to a first degree felony which carries a penalty of three to 10 years in prison.

Is it fair that the first man is punished more severely because he may or may not have hit the second man because of his religious affiliation? Isn’t this like saying that an attack on the second man is worse than an attack on the first man? How is this equal?

A crime is a crime, and a victim is a victim, regardless of their race, gender, religion, nationality, disability or sexual orientation. We are all humans and therefore, we are all equal. Creating laws that protect certain types of people is the same as saying they are worth more than someone who doesn’t fall into those categories.