Overweight 'should be protected'

Really?

Attacking someone for being fat should be a hate crime, campaigners say.
They want so-called "fat-ism" to be made illegal on the same grounds as race, age and religious discrimination.

Yes. If that's the only way they can get some form of protection then so be it, although there's very obviously a media spin on this and it's that more than anything that people are bickering over on this thread. Unfortunately it's also that polemic spin that has brought out some of the narrow-minded bigots on this thread, hence my earlier comment about the media being as much about a reflection as a projection.

If it were put this way by the writer/editor then I doubt very much it would have attracted quite so much attention "overweight people who routinely suffer abuse simply because of their size are seeking help from the government in classifying this abuse as both offensive and illegal."

Doesn't sound quite so offensive now does it. It's just a toned down spin, nothing else, same thought. Some of you should try thinking a little more laterally. Pulling your heads out of your arses would give you a different perspective for starters (madillness, those last comments are not directed at you).