Navan- disgusting homophobic attack on schoolboy

I just watched the video.

That chap should be expelled from the school, face arrest for what is quite obviously an act of hate (I know it's not official, but the footage pretty much confirms this to anyone of common sense); and should be jailed for at least 5-7 years.

Now look, I'm fully aware our legal system wouldn't even allow anything close to the above.

But you absolutely have to lock the hell up these people because why on Earth would we want a society filled with aggressive psychos like that.

(and by the way, a 'hate crime' doesn't actually change anything. What matters is that a person / group of people thought they could attack someone based on a 'difference'. The attack is what matters, not the cause. For instance: some similar group could attack someone because they were ginger, or fat, or very skinny, or some other discernible difference. We shouldn't focus on the sexuality / identity issue. What matters is that someone was attacked - and the reason for that is totally secondary).

If they had cameraphones when I went to school there would be a video like that every week. Lads fighting on the green on the way home from school was normal. I'm not saying it was a good thing but it was regular. Maybe times are different, I don't know. People going on about hate crimes for kids fighting outside schools seems a bit over the top.

I made a far broader point.

That any point of difference is targeted by bullies.

Some of these may very well, as you say, also happen to be classified as so-called "protected characteristics".

But fat people are abused - both psychologically and physically - to a ridiculous extent in schools, yet that is not considered protected.

Yet we continue to create this nonsense of a hierarchy of abuse - that some attacks are worse than others, because some points of difference are considered more valuable than others.

I say let's scrap the whole lot.

Let's treat all attacks as equally as disgusting as one another - whether it's this vile group-attack on that victim, or whether it's an attack on someone else for any other reason, irrespective of whether that reason is classified as a "protected characteristic".

You may even say, let's not discriminate which attacks are worse than others.

For sure, but you've defended obesity as a "protected characteristic", but what about people abused and attacked for being too skinny?

For being red-faced?

For being big-eared?

For being fashionably "different"?

For having a stutter?

People, whether teenagers or adults, will always find a way to attack other people - either psychologically or physically. That's because they think they can get away with it and because they are bullies.

Having a specific set of "protected characteristics" implies that some attacks are worse than others.

I say let's treat them all as equally bad.