If you’re like most white people in modern culture, you probably feel that you’ve been put into a position of ultra-sensitivity when speaking about issues of race, gender, or the lifestyles of other protected classes.  You could be the most compassionate and open-minded person on the planet, have friends of every color and gender classification, and still be unable to voice an opinion that’s acceptable to the language police.  If you dare to render an opinion that violates this new code of verbal conduct, you are likely to be labeled a “hater.”  Moreover, if your words get picked up on social media, you may become the victim of a merciless campaign of intimidation and threats that will be forwarded to your employer or place of business, possibly subjecting you to loss of employment.

Keep in mind: this can happen to you only if you have less “colorful” pigmentation in your skin than your black and brown friends.  If you say you don’t agree with amnesty for those who have violated our immigration laws, you may be targeted as anti-Hispanic, making you a hater – that is, unless your surname is obviously of Spanish origin.  If blacks in Ferguson, Missouri or Baltimore, Maryland are seen in news clips rioting and looting, whites must be careful not to refer to them as “thugs” or some other criminal characterization, despite the accuracy of the reference.  We’re told that such references are much too insulting to the race of the people toward which they are used.  Well, excuse me!  I wouldn’t want to insult the sensitivity of a guy smashing the plate glass window of an appliance store and walking out with a television on his shoulder.

By the way, if I call a white guy a thug, am I being insulting toward everyone of European extraction?  Hardly!

Only “people of color” have a right to be offended.  If the verbal assassins discover that you’re a member of a protected class, they’ll just move on and scour the blogs until they find a white person rendering the same opinion.  Suppose you object to gay marriage on religious grounds and post your feelings on a popular site.  The savage bloggers will be on you like ravenous wolves pulling down a buck.  Maybe you’ve had good friendships with gays all your life, but you don’t believe they should compel people to violate their closely held religious beliefs.  That doesn’t mean you no longer like your gay friends, or that you’re going to publicly demonstrate against them.  It just means you have an opinion that differs from theirs.

Nevertheless, you won’t get any respect for your opinion; you’ll simply get mauled and branded a homophobe, also known as a hater.  I’ve known some gays who have no interest in getting married.  Are they homophobes?  I know blacks who think Al Sharpton is an inflammatory demagogue.  Are they racists?  Are they Uncle Toms?  Many Mexican-Americans are fervently against amnesty.  What should we call them – Uncle Juans?

All this nonsense would be laughable if it weren’t so despicable.  Decent people without a bigoted bone in their bodies are being hammered for having the temerity to exercise what used to be their First Amendment rights.  Furthermore, what was intended doesn’t matter – only what the speech Mafia believes was intended.

It’s the height of hypocrisy to refer to people as haters when you are exhibiting hateful behavior that seeks to destroy them for what you think they’re thinking.  I don’t expect this column to discourage those power-hungry cretins from continuing their petty character assassination pursuits.  But if they have a scintilla of integrity, it might help them to recognize who the real haters are.