"Why We Need a Federal Hate-Crimes Law" by Judy Shepard and Joe SolmoneseLast month, 72-year-old Detroit resident Andrew Anthos was severely beaten with a metal pipe after being asked by a man if he was gay. He would later slip into a coma and ultimately die from the attack. His story comes shortly after the death of Nakia Ladelle Baker, a transgender woman who was found beaten to death in early January in a Nashville parking lot. In New York City a few months before these two murders, Michael Sandy was also killed in an antigay assault where he was beaten, chased into traffic, hit by a car, and then dragged off the road and attacked a second time by his assailants.
As gruesome and tragic as these stories are, they are but three heart-wrenching examples of the hundreds of anti-LGBT hate crimes that occur all over our country every year.
Fear of violence remains a horrible reality for millions of GLBT Americans—even in places that many consider “tolerant” or “progressive.” Every act of violence is tragic and harmful in its consequences, but not all crime is based on hate. A bias-motivated crime affects not only the victim and his or her family but an entire community or category of people and their families.
The current federal hate-crimes law, enacted nearly 40 years ago, covers only bias attacks based on race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion. In the case of a hate crime based on sexual orientation or gender identity, our government’s hands are tied: It doesn’t have the authority to go after perpetrators of anti-LGBT violent crime. It’s time to update the law to protect everyone.
. . . this law offers a real solution to combating anti-LGBT violence. It does so by accomplishing two very important goals.
First, the federal government gains the authority to prosecute anti-LGBT hate crimes. No matter how awful the crime, nor how compelling the evidence, the federal government simply cannot act without this law.
Second, this legislation will put crucial federal resources at the disposal of state and local agencies and equip local law enforcement officers with the tools they need to seek justice. There have been numerous hate-crimes cases where local jurisdictions simply lacked the full resources to prosecute the guilty. As an example, when Matthew Shepard was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998, the town had to scramble financially to handle the investigation, prosecution, and security required. The case ended up costing this small locality of roughly 28,000 people about $150,000 and the county sheriff’s department was ultimately forced to furlough five deputies to save money. The police department also incurred about $25,000 in overtime costs. Federal assistance would have been a huge help.
. . . The right wing is already launching its own full-scale effort to defeat the bill—and with few credible arguments against the law, those on the right have resorted to flat out lying. They actually argue that the law will criminalize thought and be used to persecute antigay churches. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the 39 years that the current hate-crimes law has been on the books, there has never been a single “thought crime” charge brought against anyone. And despite the far right’s complaints, there is something profoundly telling about the fact that mainstream religious leaders from nearly all 50 states converged on Capitol Hill in April to take the lead in lobbying for this bill.
[They do not want sexual orientation to join national origin, race, and religion as a protected class.]