Calm Needed in Trayvon Martin Case

The Trayvon Martin case marches on. Today, his parents and attorney attended hearings in the House of Representatives on hate crimes. The debate about his intentions the night he was killed, or of the attitude and intention of the man who killed him, however, will go on for quite a long time.

The real bottom line is we don't know what exactly happened that night. Whatever exactly occurred was surely terrible no matter what the background. If a young man, any young man, hate crimes be damned, is killed without just cause, then we are faced with an unspeakable atrocity. If a guy just doing his job is being railroaded, then we have a moral affront against him to consider. But we, the public, simply doesn't know which it is, or whether perhaps it is even something somewhere in between.

Yet there are forces in this country which can't have that, and they may well exist on both sides of the spectrum. No matter what they say, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton don't truly know how exactly the events transpired that fatal day. But it does give them a cause, or, rather, fuels their fire about race issues. Issues upon which they rely for a forum. Does this mean that race wasn't involved in the Trayvon Martin instance? Of course not. But simply because of the obvious circumstances, it doesn't mean than race was involved either.

The defenders of George Zimmerman ought to be careful as well. They don't know any more about the case than what their counterparts on the left do; each side seems willing to believe what supports their basic creed and little more. That just is not fair to Martin, Zimmerman, or the cause of justice.

Nor can inflaming sentiments help the case. One of the problems with hate crimes is that, quite frankly, they dilute and distract from the real point of justice. If a young unarmed man doing nothing he was not within his legal and moral right to do was murdered, we have a terrible crime against him and humanity. But Orwellian crimes, made up essentially to support some blanket causes and not in themselves criminal, hamper rather than aid justice. Motive, no matter how reprehensible, can never be criminal, because motive itself is a thought, not a physical act. Unless, of course, you believe in thoughtcrime. We may as well round up everybody then, for there's few of us who don't commit that.

In the meantime, we need to stick to the facts, and let the proper authorities act as the facts dictate. Sure, call them on the matter if need be. Demand they act, if you have some really good reason why they should. Beyond that, don't make a young man's death a social or political football. His memory serves no purpose if used to divide the nation for mere sectarian gain.