Killer of Gay Activist Pays Dollars for Hate Crime: Leaders of Postmodern Witch Hunt Should Pay

Chad Allen Conyers has admitted in civil court that he beat, strangled and murdered Knoxville gay rights activist Joseph Camber. The only penalty Conyers will pay is money. He has agreed to pay $200,000 to the parents of the gay rights activist he murdered some 3 years ago. Joseph Camber's body was found on the University of Tennessee campus. According to the settlement documents, the murderer's motives were "ill will, hatred and/or personal spite."

Shortly after the murder, one gay Knoxvillian was inspired to both arm himself and form a chapter of the Pink Pistols. The Pink Pistols, a gay gun group, has 48 chapters in 31 states and one chapter in Canada. There are active chapters in Knoxville and Memphis. Nashville's chapter is temporarily inactive.

The slogan of the Pink Pistols is: Armed Gays Don't Get Bashed.

Would the penalty be stiffer if it were gays doing the killing?

"Ill will" and "hatred" sound like the motives of the Tennessee legislators who filed more than a dozen hate-filled anti-gay bills this legislative session. With this kind of leadership, and murderers free to walk the streets, can we really expect hate crime to decrease?

And who do we hold responsible if yet more gays are murdered? Why, the leaders of the postmodern witch hunt, of course. Murderers should be locked up. Those who inspire them with hateful rhetoric and discriminatory laws should be required to cough up financial compensation for every last victim.

Those who lead the state and the country into the darkness of hate and intolerance should be made to understand that it is they who are responsible for the consequences.