President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law yesterday, October 28.

The following slide show features photographs of President Obama and the families of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., at the White House signing ceremony and a reception at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters in Washington, D.C., for activists who worked more than a decade to pass this landmark legislation.

This week is the "2009 Media Violence Fast", an annual week-long campaign that encourages people to take a stand against violent media by making a conscious decision to not watch or listen to it.  The campaign is sponsored by the So We Might See Coalition, a diverse group of faith organizations that includes the United Church of Christ, U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, the Islamic Society of North America, and others.

This year's focus is on the increasing amount of anti-immigrant hate speech in media, particularly in television news and talk radio.  You can go to the campaign's website to sign a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Commerce to conduct an inquiry into hate speech and update a government report that collects statistics and information about the connection between hate speech and hate crimes.

On Friday, the Senate passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act as an amendment to the fiscal year 2010 Department of Defense authorization bill.  But today, the Senate passed an amendment to the Act, offered by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R. Ala., that would allow the death penalty to be applied in hate crimes cases under some circumstances. 

LCCR and other civil and human rights groups that are supporting the Act do not support the Sessions amendment.  In a letter to the Senate, the groups said: "We strongly oppose this amendment...The death penalty is irreversible and highly controversial – with significant doubts about its deterrent effect and clear evidence of disproportionate application against poor people. Moreover, there are serious, well-documented concerns about unequal and racially biased application of the death penalty."

The Sessions amendment can still be removed from the bill by a House-Senate conference committee that will meet in September to reconcile the two versions of the legislation. The full House and Senate will vote on the final version of the bill before it is sent to President Obama.

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act will authorize the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute certain bias-motivated crimes based on the victim's actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.  Currently, the federal government can only investigate hate crimes motivated by the victim's race, color, religion, and national origin in limited cases.

It will also provide local authorities with more resources to combat hate crimes and give the federal government jurisdiction over prosecuting hate crimes in states where the current law is inadequate or when local authorities are unwilling or do not have the resources to do so themselves. 

Of all hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2007 (the most recent data available), the proportion committed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals rose to 16.6 percent, the highest level in five years, according to a new LCCREF report.

The report, "Confronting the New Faces of Hate: Hate Crimes in America 2009," analyzes trends in federal hate crimes data and contains a series of recommendations for action by public officials, civic leaders, and the public.

Hate crimes send a message of terror to an entire group of people, not just the individual victim. According to the FBI, LGBT individuals have been the third most frequent target of hate violence over the past decade.

Today, LCCREF released a new report, "Confronting the New Faces of Hate: Hate Crimes in America," that analyzes trends in federal hate crimes data, particularly the rise in anti-Latino hate crimes in the wake of the heated national debate over immigration reform.  The report also documents how extremists use the Internet, radio and other forms of media to promote their messages and recruit new members.

"In an increasingly diverse America, there is no civil right more fundamental to the working of American Democracy than protecting individuals from acts of violence because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability," said Wade Henderson, president of LCCR.

The Senate is expected to vote on their version of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which passed in the House in April, before Congress recesses in August. The bill will provide local authorities with more resources to combat hate crimes and give federal government jurisdiction over prosecuting hate crimes in states where the current law is inadequate.