It's A Hate Crime.

Every so often a subject pops up on my radar that makes me divert from my usual silly self; trust me when I say I don’t like being serious.

However, I do have to stop and address something as horrendous as a hate crime. Now statewide Utah law may not classify this as a hate crime just yet, but these crimes were still done out of hate. There’s no denying that.

Salt Lake City resident Dane Hall was leaving a night club on Aug. 26 when he was attacked by a group of people who shouted slurs at him, stole his identification and eventually curb-checked him. You can find the details in a Sept. 10 article by Rosemary Winters in the Salt Lake Tribune.

I’ll leave you to look up the term. This column is already too serious.

American Fork resident Cameron Nelson was taking out some trash at his place of employment on Sept. 8 when he too was attacked by a group of people who beat him up and stole money from him. You can find out more on this in the same article referenced above.

It’s not up to me to speculate whether or not these crimes were done by the same people, if one was inspired by the other, or if there’s just two eerily similar attacks within about as many weeks.

All I can theorize is these two men were targeted because they were gay.

Yes, there's also been allegations that drugs were involved in the first attack, but it's total speculation. A Sept. 21 article in the Salt Lake Tribune by Sheena McFarland outlines those accusations and Hall's response.

I don’t want to go too far into the logistics of a hate crime because part of me wants to cry “foul" while the other half of me wants to shout “equality.” Should we punish people more severely if they target a person because she or he is black or Jewish or gay? Or should we make the punishment equal for all aggravated assaults? I’ll leave that up to you to decide since I’m constantly being torn in both directions.

For those who actually commit hate crimes, whether they be motivated because of race or simply motivated by an unchecked dislike for a person, I have a simple review for you: "Freaky Friday" style life switch. That’s right. You get one week of living in the shoes of the person (or people) you despise the most.

Cut to me making millions off the movie rights.

If you read the news, then maybe you’ve heard that these are two attacks out of three, but I can’t confirm that third attack. As far as I can find out, a gay couple was attacked in their northern Utah home. I can’t find names, so if anyone has that information, please share it.

While the thought of a group running around attacking gay people makes me sick, the thought that these are two completely separate groups of people makes me want to vomit. That would make me a liar because I was getting to a good point of defending Utahns as being pretty open-minded.

I guess a part of me is afraid that evil begets evil. I think I might be paranoid because I just saw “Contagion,” but sometimes these kinds of things are seriously contagious. I mean, look at the London riots! Who's to say the seedy underbelly of Salt Lake City isn’t going to rise up in one giant wave of uneducated mass and start murdering people left and right for being fabulous?

I know. It’s a stretch.

I do have a review for this group or groups of people committing these crimes: You get 11 months out of the next year as 12-year-old girls—in Colorado City, Ariz.

I’m not delusional enough to think the pigs who committed these crimes are actually going to read my column, let alone glean anything from it. But I will hope that my super power of action loathing will permeate the atmosphere and reach the simpletons. You know, the idiots who think we live in a society where being gay is considered worse than being an elementary school drop-out who’s more than likely addicted to drugs.

I just hope when that feeling of loathing hits those people, they don’t think it’s God telling them to beat up someone smarter than they are.

Because if that’s what happens, then they’ll have a good majority of the population to beat up.

Yes, I’m calling the fools who committed these crimes a bunch of mute donkeys. Think about that one for a minute.

Hopefully we as Utahns can find it in our hearts to look above and beyond our own personal biases and simply do what the church and every third grade teacher tells you: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I would absolutely love to hear from those of you who agree with me, but I would love it even more if those who disagree with me would put me in my place. Follow @SkewedReview on Twitter or “like” on Facebook at facebook.com/theskewedreview. Tell me, and others, what you think of all this nonsense, and tell us how we might stop this issue dead in its tracks.