Hate Crime or Not Hate Crime? Wink, Wink.

When a couple of U.S. Marines assaulted and knocked out a gay man in downtown Savannah, Georgia they were arrested.  What they were charged with is the subject of a growing controversy.

Asked why these two soldiers knocked Kieran Daly to the sidewalk, they gave as their motivation that they though he winked at them.  So a wink is reason to slug somebody?  Aside from the trivial alleged cause, the victim said the two used anti-gay slurs as well as they assaulted him.

Hummm?  The attackers admit the perceived wink was the cause, and the victim says they used slurs, sounds like a hate crime to me, but apparently not to the Justice Department.  The FBI says their preliminary investigation didn't show reason to classify this as a hate crime.  I wonder how much more specific it needed to be?

Did the attackers need to wear white hoods and spray paint anti-gay slogans on the victim?  OK, that is hyperbole, but the point is what would constitute a hate crime.  They didn't rob the guy, just cold-cocked him for a wink. 

Had they robbed the victim, you might mistake the motive, but this  is pretty clear.  When is the FBI going to start taking the federal hate crimes laws seriously when it comes to LGBT people?  My suspicion is because the attackers are Marines, they are getting a nod and a wink from the feds.  That is one kind of wink whose meaning is very clear, "it's OK to beat up LGBT people if you are in uniform."