Gays & Lesbians Now Protected by Federal Hate Crimes Law
President Obama today signed into law a defense bill that also expands federal hate crime law to include sexual orientation. After years of impasse in Congress, Democrats attached the hate crimes measure to the vital defense bill, thereby finally assuring its passage. The new law makes violence committed on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability a federal crime, which carries enhanced sentencing guidelines. The measure, a priority of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, was named after Matthew Shepard, a gay college student brutally murdered in Wyoming 11 years ago because of his sexual orientation.
While conservatives have long fought expanding federal hate crimes statutes to include gays and lesbians, Obama remarked pointedly on the inclusiveness of the law at the signing. He told those assembled that people, regardless of "what they look like, who they love, how they pray or why they are," will be protected from violence. Members of the LGBT community and leaders of LGBT organizations roundly hailed the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act. "This is a landmark step in eliminating the kind of hate motivated violence that has taken the lives of so many in our community," said Jarrett Barrios, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Gays and lesbians everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief. Finally!
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This is a disturbing story --
This is a disturbing story -- the validity of hate crime laws should always be in question, because how do you prosecute thoughtcrime? On top of that, it's dirty politics to sneak a measure through like that, whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats doing it. I'm not sure why people who agree with the intent of this should necessarily be happy with this bill.
Hate crimes laws are a bad idea but ...
They are a bad idea because they criminalize some thought and not other similar thought. If Joe criminal is beating you because you are gay or because you are black it shouldn't be any more of a crime than if they are beating you because you support the Mets or are a Republican. By passing hate crime laws of any kind we are saying that some people are less worthy of legal protection than others and that some hatred is worse than others and that in itself is a really bad idea.
That said, we have hate crime laws and given the irrational homophobia exhibited by a good part of the the US population it seems reasonable that if we're creating classes of people to be protected sexual orientation should be one of them. It's hard to argue that crimes against gays are not hate motivated and it would be hypocritical to allow hate crime laws on racial grounds but not on sexual orientation.
In other words we should either repeal all hate crime laws or make a blanket law that says anybody who it targeted because of their membership in any group or class becomes a hate crime victim be they a gay or have dark skin or a Mets fan or even a white middle aged republican if that was the factor that contributed to the crime.
Its not just G&L, get an education
The new hate crimes law includes gender identity, even says that in your article, yet all that everyone says is that it now covers Gays and Lesbians. NEWS FLASH - Gender Identity is not sexual orientation. Gender Identity, in simplest terms, means Transgender people are also included. Get an education, Transgender does not make someone Gay or Lesbian. In a Trans support group of 30 (small town) most of us are Heterosexual in our gender identity. Being a man with natal female body who has sexual or domestic partnerships with women makes me... STRAIGHT. The new hate crimes long covers me as a Trtanssexual/Transgender, even though I am not lesbian or gay. Ah, but it also covers a few of us because we are DISABLED which every reporter seems to miss when going for sensationalism instead of facts.