But law is, at best, an imperfect instrument of grief and expiation. There should indeed be outrage at the climate of homophobia and bigotry that causes young people to take their own lives, and Ravi is absolutely complicit in that. However, as I wrote in March, so is everyone who reinforces gender norms, makes crude comments, and occasionally even threatens violence against those we perceive to be threatening to our notions of how men and women should be. The ongoing and underreported violence against transgender people (four murders in the last month alone), the institutionalized discrimination against LGBT people, the tolerance that otherwise reasonable people have for the unreasonable, hateful, and harmful rhetoric from fundamentalist religious leaders—these are what we should be condemning today. None of them are counts against Dharun Ravi.

Law is not going to solve social problems of bigotry and homophobia by singling out scapegoats and punishing them for all of our sins. If you are angry that no one is being held responsible for a young man’s suicide, don’t look to the court system—look around, and look in the mirror. Mitt Romney is responsible for it, anti-gay preachers are responsible for it, North Carolina voters are responsible for it and so is Dharun Ravi. So are all of us.