Another hate crime hoax? LGBT activist of burning down his own home, killing his own pets.

An LGBT flag. The Hill/Getty.

Authorities are accusing a transgender gay rights activist of burning down his own home and killing his own pets in an apparent hate crime hoax. The Hill. The home of Nikki Joly burned down in 2017 and five pets died in the fire. The FBI initially investigated the incident as a hate crime after reports that Joly had been threatened for his LGBT activism. Due to his efforts to pass LGBT laws, Joly was awarded Citizen of the Year in Jackson Michigan. However, authorities have determined that Joly set the fire himself. The motive remains unclear but police have ruled out fraud as a motive since there was no insurance policy and Joly was renting and did not own the property. Some people have said that Joly was upset that a pride parade in Jackson was not protested against, though one of the people quoted withdrew the comments. Joly has been charged with 1st degree arson in the case. 

My Comment:

A quick note about the individual in this case. I am very confused which way this person goes in terms of pronouns. I think that Joly is a biological female that identifies as a man, but I honestly don't know. For the sake of clarity I will use the pronouns in the report I cited. Regardless of the politics of the situation, it's confusing either way. Despite being very uncomfortable with it I tend to go with whatever gender people identify just for the sake of not being confusing, but in this case I can't tell if I am doing so. What a mess. 

This is another fake hate crime in the same vein as the Jussie Smollett case. This one has some differences though. Smollett did what he did partially out of greed. He wanted a bigger paycheck and although politics was a major motivation, it wasn't the only one. 

In this case it seems as though Joly was motivated primarily by politics. My read on Joly is that he is a person who's whole identity is LGBT and doesn't have much of a life outside of activism. Such a person is threatened when their world view is challenged because not only are they proven wrong about a belief but because their whole life is challenged. 

If the witnesses are to believed, Joly took it personally that nobody protested a pride parade he organized. Normally that would be a good thing for any normal person, but that is not how Joly reacted. Clearly he believed that there was a massive proportion of the population that hates the LGBT population and when he found out that it didn't appear to be true he got upset. 

Generally speaking I think that worldview is pretty wrong. Most people are either supportive of LGB people or at least don't care. Less people approve of the transgendered but even if people don't like any of those groups very few are willing to risk the social, political and even legal consequences that harassing these people entails. Actual hate crimes against the LGBT community are rarer than they are claimed.

In short, Joly wanted a hate crime but the supply of people that actually hate the LGBT community wouldn't provide him one. So he made his own. In doing so he killed his own pets and burned down his own house. That's pure scumbag behavior and is probably even worse than what Jussie Smollett did. 

It appears that Joly is in pretty considerable legal jeopardy for this incident. He hasn't been convicted in this case but he has been charged with first degree arson. That's a pretty big felony but I think it should be a hate crime as well. His actions went beyond simply harming himself, but slandered millions of people who may not agree with every aspect of the LGBT coalition and also terrorized the people in his own community. How many gay, lesbian and transgender people heard about this incident and thought it could happen to them? His actions were hugely damaging to everyone and I hope they throw the book at him.