The so-called crime committed by Dharun Ravi, one-time freshman student at Rutgers University, was technically nothing more than invasion of privacy for daring to use a webcam to spy on his gay roommate during a supposed sexual encounter.  But by the time the politicized mob spearheaded by New Jersey’s prosecutorial hacks had finished grandstanding for the gay community, Ravi was smacked with 15 criminal counts including the great big one of bias intimidation, a charge which carried a 5 – 10 year prison term.

When the jury brought in an across-the-board verdict of guilty, it looked like Ravi would be yet another sacrificial offering on the altar of alternative lifestyle apotheosis.  But fortunately for Ravi, the presiding judge put the pandering politics to one side and focused on the facts.

Judge Glenn Berman of New Jersey’s Superior Court sentenced Ravi to 30 days in jail, 3 years probation, 300 hours of community service, counseling, and constructive damages of $10,000.  The righteous mob, of course, wanted Ravi sentenced to several years in prison as did the parents of Tyler Clementi, the young gay man whose suicide sparked this whole super victim extravaganza.  For the howling hordes of hate crime mania, nothing less than total demonization and long-term incarceration could possibly suffice.

As Bill Maher has often opined, we live in a culture where feelings are now more important than facts.  Well, let me push a couple of facts forward regardless of the flaky feelings.

• No sexual encounter was caught on the webcam.  The encounter was an embrace between Clementi and another gay guy that involved nothing more than kissing.

• The encounter was NOT streamed over the internet but it was shown to some of the other students in the dorm.

• Clementi arranged for a second ‘date’ in his dorm room even though he at that point was well aware of the webcam spying.

• Clementi had emailed a friend that he had told his parents he was gay and that his mom had basically rejected him.

Anyone who can get to the point of throwing themselves off the George Washington Bridge is a very troubled soul indeed.  To lay Clementi’s pathetic suicide at the feet of Dharun Ravi is as stupidly idiotic as the insensitive dorm room prank that started this whole hate crime hustle.

Ravi should NOT have received jail time.  But considering the pack of victim-hood jackals yapping for his flesh and blood, his fate could have been so much worse.

It was nice to see though that many within the gay and lesbian communities wanted nothing to do with the political railroading of Dharun Ravi.  And also nice to know that Ravi had many supporters within the Indian American community who publicly expressed their ire at the hate crime circus hell-bent on destroying the life of this young man.

Some snapshots from a pro-Ravi perspective.