Assault With a Ham Steak in Lewiston, Maine

Hate crimes--they're horrible, nasty, injurious, right? Uh, well, I suppose that depends on what you call a hate crime. As I was leaving my church building the other night, I asked a woman to have her husband lock the door on his way out. (The key is located in a position that requires some height to obtain it.)

She asked, "Why, because can't you reach it," chuckle, chuckle?

Oh the shame, oh the pain, the humiliation and hatred I have experienced because I am only 5 feet 6 inches tall. This is only one of many such agonizing taunts I have received and receive with regularity. I am thinking of contacting the Attorney General's office as he seems to be right in tune with these sorts of awful incidents!

Okay, enough sarcasm. The incident I mentioned above is true. But I am NOT serious about it being hurtful or hateful. I am serious that Lewiston made national news last week because an adolescent put a piece of ham in a bag and laid it on the lunch table by some Somali students. Muslims can't eat pork.

To be sure the incident was mean, and I don't doubt offensive to the Somali kids. But the child who did it needs to be disciplined from the perspective of a stupid adolescent who did something unkind like so many kids have done in school ever since kids have been going to school. But in Maine--this is a case for investigation!

"Lewiston police are investigating, and Stephen Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence is working with the school to create a response plan."

The porcine predator response plan; now that's hilarious except that it's true. I can envision a SWAT Team rappelling through windows subduing the ham sandwich with tazers, mace and a good wallop with a numchuck but then you'd have to worry about PETA getting into the fray.

Wessler actually stated, "having a ham sandwich in close proximity to Muslims is 'an awful thing. It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading' to Muslims…" No exaggeration there, eh?

The double standard for Muslims and Christians is poignant. Christians are offended, embarrassed, singled out and discriminated against with impunity in the public schools of this state and not by their peers who they can blow off as immature idiots but by the teachers and administrators of our schools. Big Brother is here, and he is not a nice boy.

(See Part two below)