Hate murders run unchecked. This week saw its second hate murder in as many weeks. First it was an abortion doctor, murdered in a worship service. Next came a killing in the museum honoring six million murdered victims, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. (At Right: A younger David Frost whose career was jump started by TWTWTW.)

The question reasonably arises, "Will someone kill a gay person next week?" O, I forgot. Gay people are brutally beaten and/or killed routinely in Christian and Muslims countries alike. Two Lesbians were found dead in their apartment last week in Baltimore. In Iran the government kills gay people on the flimsiest of evidence. In the US the religious right opposes making laws against gay bashing and murders and calling them hate crimes. Why? Presumably on the grounds that if it were the law of the land then they would have to stop encouraging hatred toward gay people and enjoying the financial benefits of doing so.

Apparently, killing gay person is not yet a high profile crime. (When I was young, all black on black crimes, murder included, were not vigorously prosecuted by an all white police force and judicial system.) Some still think that the victim is responsible for crimes against him. The gay man, say the religious fanatics, is committing an act against nature, and any brutal act against him is his just desserts.

Where in this thinking is the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?"

*(For our younger Apollo men, TWTWTW was a TV program that started in the UK and came to the US in 1963 through 1965 staring such luminaries as Alan Alda, Henry Fonda, Woody Allen, Gene Hackman, David Frost, Mike Nichols, etc. It was the first television show to make fun of politicians openly and to the delight of an enthusiastic audience. It was the forerunner of the "Daily Show" and others that we now take for granted. At the height of the 1964 Presidential campaign, the Republican Party bought its TV time slot to stop its lampooning of Barry Goldwater, all to no avail as their candidate lost in the largest landslide vote in the 20th Century.)