House Passes Hate Crimes Bill Protecting GLBT Americans, Women, and People with Disabilities
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 5/4/2007
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals are one step closer to being a protected class under federal hate crimes laws.
The U.S. House of Representatives today voted, 237-180, to pass the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HR 1592). "This is an important vote of conscience, of a statement of what America is, a society that understands that we accept differences," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D. Md.
"I am personally grateful to the United States House for recognizing the grave reality of hate crimes in America," said Judy Shepard, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and mother of hate crime victim, Matthew Shepard, who was killed in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998.
HR 1592 will expand coverage to include gender, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and individuals with disabilities. It also provide grants to state and local communities to combat violent crimes committed by juveniles, train law enforcement officers, or to assist in state and local investigations and prosecutions of bias motivated crimes.
Recent data shows that hate violence continues to be a problem in the U.S. FBI statistics for 2005 showed a slight decline in hate crimes (about 7,163, down from 7,649 in 2004), but major cities like New York City, Phoenix and states like Alabama and Mississippi did not report.
Civil rights groups called the 2005 statistics "incomplete" and "a setback to the progress the Bureau has made in the [hate crimes] program."
Nearly 14% of hate crimes in 2005 were committed against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals. "No one can deny the reality of hate violence against LGBT people," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "The importance of this cannot be overstated."
Wade Henderson said that the increasing number of hate crimes committed against GLBT Americans of color only further underscored the importance of HR 1592's House passage.
"Today's House vote is a win for young GLBT men and women, including an increasing number of GLBT individuals of color, who have lost their lives for merely being who they are," said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in a statement. "[Hate] violence affects not just the intended victim, but his or her entire community. It is meant to silence."
HR 1592 has the endorsement of 230 law enforcement, civil rights, civic and religious organizations and the support of 73 percent of the American people and has been approved separately in the House and the Senate by bipartisan majorities on a number of occasions since 2000, but final passage has been blocked by the House Republican leadership.
