Imagine taking someone home from a party. After the two of you “hook up,” you find out some rather disturbing news — the person you slept with is not a member of the opposite sex.

How would you react?

What would you do?

Some might understandably react with some sort of violence.

It is simply a reaction to a form of rape.

But some people take the reaction a little too far.

A Newark, Calif., boy is dead as a result of being beaten after having sex with two men who thought he was a woman.

On Oct. 3, Jose Merel, 24, and his brother Paul, 25, both of Newark, decided to throw a party for some friends.

One of the people partying at the Merel house that night was thought to be a woman named Gwen or Lida.

Jose Merel and friend Michael Magidson, 22, of Fremont, Calif., had sex with Gwen that night at the party, according to an article in The Los Angeles Times titled “Trying to Understand Eddie’s Life — and Death.”

The two later found out that Gwen wasn’t really Gwen at all, but rather Eddie Araujo, a 17-year-old male from Newark.

Araujo didn’t tell the men his gender.

He tricked them into having sex with him, but if they would have known his sex, they wouldn’t have been interested.

That is just as bad as rape.

After the men found out Gwen was really Eddie, they flipped out. They allegedly ran into the bathroom where Jose Merel started punching Araujo. Jose Merel and Magidson then dragged the semiconscious Araujo into the garage where they put a rope around his neck until they thought he was dead.

After realizing what just happened, the men bagged him up and took him to a remote location where they buried him in a shallow grave.

Last Wednesday, Jason Nabors, who may have played a small role in the beating, confessed to police and took them to the spot where the body was dumped.

Now, Nabors, 19, Newark, Magidson and Jose Merel all face murder charges with hate crime enhancements.

This is where it gets tricky.

Are the charges just?

Do these men deserve to be incarcerated for the rest of their lives?

Or did they just overreact in a horrible situation?

Fact is, someone is dead.

The men did not have the right to take the boy’s life.

Given the circumstances, murder is a bit much.

Obviously the men should be held accountable to some extent, but it’s fair to say they were not in a normal mind set when they acted.

They were probably “temporarily insane” — they did just find out that they were tricked into having sex with a man.

The police did not stop at murder, however.

They are trying to get a sentence extended by claiming the men committed a hate crime.

This is absurd.

A hate crime is a crime committed because of a person’s race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion and/or handicap status.

That means the underlying reason for the beating was Araujo’s sexual orientation. And that is not the case.

The men did what they did because Araujo violated them.

He used lies and deception to trick them into having sex.

He was not honest with them and had he been, none of this would have happened.

A hate crime should not even be considered. No one killed him because he was a cross-dresser.

These men were truly violated.

They were raped.

If a woman is raped and kills her assailant, would she be charged with murder?

No.

Then men should be charged with manslaughter or something along those lines.

But, considering the state they were in at the time the crime was committed, the reaction is not mind-boggling.

Think about it.

How would you react?

Zach Calef

is a junior in apparel design, production and

merchandising from Cedar Rapids. He is a member of the Daily’s editorial board.