Hate crimes bill goes to Obama for signature

[Pint0 Xtreme]

CNN

Hate crimes bill goes to Obama for signature

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate passed groundbreaking legislation Thursday that would make it a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.

The expanded federal hate crimes law now goes to President Obama's desk. Obama has pledged to sign the measure, which was added to a $680 billion defense authorization bill.

President George W. Bush had threatened to veto a similar measure.

The bill is named for Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming teenager who died after being kidnapped and severely beaten in October 1998, and James Byrd Jr., an African-American man dragged to death in Texas the same year.

Several religious groups have expressed concern that a hate-crimes law could be used to criminalize conservative speech relating to subjects such as abortion or homosexuality.

Attorney General Eric Holder has asserted that any federal hate-crimes law would be used only to prosecute violent acts based on bias, as opposed to the prosecution of speech based on controversial racial or religious beliefs.

Holder called Thursday's 68-29 Senate vote to approve the defense spending bill that included the hate crimes measure "a milestone in helping protect Americans from the most heinous bias-motivated violence."

"The passage of this legislation will give the Justice Department and our state and local law enforcement partners the tools we need to deter and prosecute these acts of violence," he said in a statement.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, called the measure "our nation's first major piece of civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people."

"Too many in our community have been devastated by hate violence," Solmonese said in a statement. "We now can begin the important steps to erasing hate in our country."

This month, Obama told the Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay rights group, that the nation still needs to make significant changes to ensure equal rights for gays and lesbians.

"Despite the progress we've made, there are still laws to change and hearts to open," he said during his address at the dinner for the Human Rights Campaign. "This fight continues now, and I'm here with the simple message: I'm here with you in that fight."

Among other things, Obama has called for the repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military, the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. He also has urged Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and pass the Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act.

The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage, for federal purposes, as a legal union between a man and a woman. It allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. The Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act would extend family benefits now available to heterosexual federal employees to gay and lesbian federal workers.

More than 77,000 hate-crime incidents were reported by the FBI between 1998 and 2007, or "nearly one hate crime for every hour of every day over the span of a decade," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.

The FBI, Holder added, reported 7,624 hate-crime incidents in 2007, the most current year with complete data.

Finally.

[FireNexus]

I've always thought the position on hate crime legislation was the stopped clock (because even a stopped clock is right twice a day) of conservative thinking. I can't see the need for separate legislation that punishes the motivation behind the crime rather than the act itself. Am I missing something? Will there be a real, tangible benefit from this legislation, or is it simply a way to look LGBT friendly?

[Duckie]

I've always thought the position on hate crime legislation was the stopped clock (because even a stopped clock is right twice a day) of conservative thinking. I can't see the need for separate legislation that punishes the motivation behind the crime rather than the act itself. Am I missing something? Will there be a real, tangible benefit from this legislation, or is it simply a way to look LGBT friendly?

"Punishes the motivation" is a conservative meme that doesn't understand the entire idea behind hate crime legislation, or even what motivates hate crimes.

Terrorism is tried as a more serious crime than Murder because it's a crime against an entire community, an attempt to instill fear in them and victimise everyone of a certain type at once. The very idea of a hate crime is to tell others of the same type "This can and will happen to you", in an attempt to cause a social change in the target group (as three examples of hate crimes I can think of, the motivations were: whites not going into a black gang's territory, blacks being less uppity, gays going back in the closet).

A Hate Crime is merely a special case of terrorism against a certain race, religion, sexual orientation, or other group, and such scum deserve harsher punishment because their crime hurts more than just the victim.

[Serafina]

Duckie summed it up nicely.
What else to say except "finally"?

Ah, i would like to see a law like that - altough we have anit-discrimination laws, and "hate-crime" cases are normally punished harder by the judicial system. But an actual law might be an advantage, altough there is less need that in the US.

[Mr Bean]

I've always thought the position on hate crime legislation was the stopped clock (because even a stopped clock is right twice a day) of conservative thinking. I can't see the need for separate legislation that punishes the motivation behind the crime rather than the act itself. Am I missing something? Will there be a real, tangible benefit from this legislation, or is it simply a way to look LGBT friendly?

Once it's a hate crime it becomes a Federal case so if a Gay, Lesbian or Transgendered person get's the shit kicked out of them the local police can't brush it under the table. That's the point of this and other hate crime legislation, to prevent the local(And also LGBT unfriendly) cops from not pursuing the case.

[Duckie]

Bean has a good point additionally, I had not even considered the jurisdiction. While Hate Crimes as Terrorism is a good enough reason, the 'loophole' of shunting them away from local cops who might not want to prosecute it is also a good enough reason to jury rig such a law even if it weren't.

Also, I'll remind the thread that there are anti-majority hate crimes as well. Although there are far, far less anti-white and anti-straight hate crimes, the FBI reports about 70 anti-straight hate crimes a year and a significantly larger anti-white hate crime amount (I cannot remember). You have only a slightly smaller chance of being a victim of an anti-straight hate crime than killed by a lightning strike, but it's still a possibility.

Unless the FBI is just making up statistics, many state Hate Crime laws don't just protect the traditional conception of minorities (blacks, women, jews, gays, etc.), or at least are applied by the states in such a way that they don't. I'm unsure if protection of whites, males, etc. is inherent in the Federal Hate Crime Law, but I bet it would be by a sensible reading of it. I know for certain the Republicans successfully inserted "US Military" as a minority worthy of hate crime protection in a rather bizarre stunt. (Since as far as I know crimes against the US Military as an institution like murder of a soldier or the like are already more stiffly punished than a crime against a civilian.)

[FireNexus]

Your points all appear valid, so I apparently was mistaken. Thanks for clearing it up for me.

[jcow79]

Several religious groups have expressed concern that a hate-crimes law could be used to criminalize conservative speech relating to subjects such as abortion or homosexuality.

To me this quote speaks volumes. They're pretty much boldface admitting to utilizing hatespeech on these issues and don't even hesitate to throw out there, "You ain't gon take way our Freedumb-O-Speech™ naw!" These wouldn't happen to be the Phelps (Westboro Baptists) group in particular would it?

[Duckie]

There's probably several competing reasons for why religious groups and their political wing in the conservative movement oppose hate crimes legislation for racial minorities, women and gays, besides their longstanding attempt to forestall any social progress for either since the segregation era and beyond:

I think it part of it again comes down to not realising what they're about- these groups, like the Catholic Church and the Mormons and the like, are aware they hate Gays. This is public knowledge. They try to wash over it with platitudes and the like, but it's basically a given. So they appear to think that Hate Crime laws make it illegal to hate gays. This idea is naturally threatening to them, even if it's a phantasm. While their behavior is repugnant, they aren't doing anything illegal by just being douches. Additional thought can be put into "Even if it's not illegalising hating gays, it clearly is going down the wrong road by giving gays more rights and making us look like bigots" category that some people are adopting. (The, "I don't support killing blacks, but I don't think it should be a crime either" argument)

However, there's another possibility: They're aware this is not the case, and simply oppose making terrorism against gays illegal. This isn't as impossible as it sounds to be a serious opinion of politicians and religions- the governor of Utah recently stated he would not sign any anti-discrimination bills protecting gays since there were no such protections for Aryans. I am not even joking. This is the more despicable case, and it's certainly present for many religious groups as a motivation.

It's probably a mixture of both for most mainstream organisations.

Then there's the third case- the westboro baptist type case- these are the people who realise it would be illegal to incite violence against gays in the same way it's illegal to incite violence against anyone, and think "Shit." because they know that that's what they're doing or they want the option to do it. I doubt "retain the capacity to cause lynchings" is on the list of priorities for the LDS Church or the like, but this motivation probably is not entirely absent from minor protestant fundamentalist groups and random bigots.

[The Yosemite Bear]

about freakin time. I mean really, we get some more teeth to nail those kluxers, and fred phelps who advocate terror and violence against others.

[The Romulan Republic]

about freakin time. I mean really, we get some more teeth to nail those kluxers, and fred phelps who advocate terror and violence against others.

I thought this law only refered to violent acts, not speech? Or at least that's what the article claims. In which case Phelps would still be immune unless he actually committed a violent act (as opposed to spouting disgusting garbage), right?

[Thanas]

Duckie summed it up nicely.
What else to say except "finally"?

Ah, i would like to see a law like that - altough we have anit-discrimination laws, and "hate-crime" cases are normally punished harder by the judicial system. But an actual law might be an advantage, altough there is less need that in the US.

Oh, please no. Not another law that messes up the StGB further.

And there really is no need for that, seeing as the courts have held that hate-crimes do generally fall under "niedrige Beweggründe".

[Metatwaddle]

about freakin time. I mean really, we get some more teeth to nail those kluxers, and fred phelps who advocate terror and violence against others.

I thought this law only refered to violent acts, not speech? Or at least that's what the article claims. In which case Phelps would still be immune unless he actually committed a violent act (as opposed to spouting disgusting garbage), right?

IANAL, but inciting people to violence ("fighting words") has never been protected speech. But there's a pretty high standard for that: unless Phelps said something really specific like "Beat any gay person you see" or "Kill this gay person right here," he wouldn't get prosecuted for it. Free speech laws are extremely robust in the US, and the downside is that we can't do anything about Phelps.

You can look up Brandenburg v. Ohio if you want to know more about the inciting-to-violence thing. My interpretation could be wrong.