John Derbyshire points out that New Jersey is dabbling with throwing out the rule of law on behalf of a sexually aberrant minority and doing so with the full blessing of Republican governor Chris Christie.
[A] year last September, Dharun Ravi and another freshman, Molly Wei, used a webcam to secretly watch Clementi kissing a young man Clementi had picked up…. Three days after that, Clementi committed suicide by jumping from the George Washington Bridge. Whether this had any connection at all to the webcam incident, is not known. That Dharun Ravi thought his prank might drive Clementi to suicide is preposterous; that he intended that result is preposterosity squared.
The homosexualists were up in arms none the less, and every damn fool politician in New Jersey joined in the hue and cry. Chris Christie, who I think less of every time he opens his fat mouth, quote: “I don’t know how those two folks are going to sleep at night, knowing that they contributed to driving that young man to that alternative.” They don’t know that, Governor, and neither do you, and neither does anyone. They played a trivial prank; Clement killed himself; cause and effect are not obvious, certainly not established to any fair evidentiary standards.
I find it no little amusing that a suicide three days after a minor, if potentially emotionally upsetting event is supposed to be conclusive evidence of “murder by reckless manslaughter” whereas when a doctor injects poison into an infant, who goes into seizures and dies within 12 hours, it is considered impossible to determine cause and effect and the very idea that the poison injection might be responsible is scoffed at as unscientific.
This is little more than a show trial, meant to publicly communicate the message that homosexuals are innocent victims of society and injuring their feelings by failing to approve their actions at all times is evil, bordering on criminal. The irony is that Dharun Ravi is obviously far less culpable for Tyler Clementi’s suicide than those individuals who repeatedly urged a psychologically unstable young man to not only indulge his abnormal sexual desires, but to identify himself by them.