The Family Jenkins: The Family That Hates Together.......

Alexis Leeann Jenkins and Mable Ashley Jenkins, two Kentucky women, have become the first people in the country to be convicted under the federal hate-crimes law for helping to assault Kevin Pennington because he's gay.

The two women pleaded guilty to one charge of kidnapping and one charge of aiding others in causing bodily injury to Pennington. Their convictions are the first in the nation under provisions of the federal law covering crimes of violence motivated by a person's actual or perceived sexual orientation, according to U.S. Attorney Kerry B. Harvey, and the two women face possible life sentences.

Good. Maybe an example will be set.

But....the circumstances of their pleas indicate that they plan on cooperating with prosecutors, so their sentences could be reduced or vacated. They have agreed to be charged by way of a document called information--which is different than an indictment, which requires a grand jury to approve the charges.  Their attorneys declined to comment on whether the two nineteen-year-old will cooperate in prosecuting two others charged in the case.

They are scheduled to be sentenced in August.

The charges arise from an April 4, 2011, attack on Kevin Pennington, who was a friend of Mable Ashley Jenkins. According to a federal indictment returned this week, David Jason Jenkins and Anthony Ray Jenkins--Alexis Jenkins is Anthony Jenkins' wife, and Ashley is his sister--wanted to attack Pennington and got the two women to lure him into a trap by saying they would help him buy Suboxone, a pain medication used to treat addiction to opiates.

The Family Jenkins took Pennington to a secluded spot at Kingdom Come State Park, and Jason and Anthony Jenkins dragged him out of the pickup and beat him with, according to court documents, the intent to kill him for being gay. Alexis and Ashley Jenkins allegedly egged on the attack, yelling "Kill the faggot."

Pennington was able to escape during a lull in the attack and hid in the woods until the four stopped looking for him.

Jason and Anthony Jenkins have pleaded not guilty. They could be sentenced to life if convicted.

I say, lock 'em all up, and give them some kind of family sentencing plan, since they like to Gay Bash together.

And. I'll say it again. If the Family Jenkins had beaten, and tried to kill, Kevin Pennington for his money, or his drugs, that would be a hateful thing to do. But to lure him in to the woods, beat him, and try to murder him simple because he's a gay man is Hate.

And it deserves full punishment.