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Burning a Black Church and Framing Trump Supporters Gets 10 Years, Burning a Gay Pride Flag Gets 16

No one has a right to steal somebody’s else property, whatever it may be, and set it on fire.

It’s a crime and should be treated like one. Should it result in 16 years in prison? That seems to depend. Let’s look at 2 cases.

An Iowa man was sentenced to serve 16 years behind bars after he tore down a rainbow flag symbolizing gay pride from the front of a church and burned it.

Adolfo Martinez, 30, was found guilty of a felony hate crime and third-degree harassment after he tore down the pride flag displayed in front of the United Church of Christ in Ames, Iowa.

Martinez seems to have had at least two priors.

And Martinez also had two prior felonies, meaning he qualified as a “habitual offender” under Iowa’s three-strikes law. Reports of Martinez’s sentencing do not, unfortunately, explain what those convictions were for. A search through Iowa’s court records shows that Martinez had previously been charged with driving without a license (which was dismissed), that he pleaded guilty to driving with a suspended license, and that in 2015 he pleaded guilty to dual charges of driving under the influence and possession of marijuana. No violent or serious felonies showed up in the state’s records system.

Read the full story from Front Page Mag


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