Just this Wednesday, President Obama made major headway for civil rights legislation when he signed called the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, making it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity.
It is named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, who were both killed due to their sexuality and ethnicity in 1998.
While hate crimes still exist, this is a major step for humanity. Check out the article below for the details:
Hate Crimes Bill Signed Into Law 11 Years After Matthew Shepard's Death
By Rachel Weiner from the HuffingtonPost.com
President Obama signed major civil rights legislation on Wednesday, making it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. The new measure expands the the scope of a 1968 law that applies to people attacked because of their race, religion or national origin. The U.S. Justice Department will have expanded authority to prosecute such crimes when local authorities don't.
The provision, called the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is attached to a defense authorization bill. It is named after Matthew Shepard, a gay college student tortured and killed in 1998, and James Byrd Jr., a black man who was chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death the same year.
The measure expands current hate crimes law to include violence based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. To assure its passage after years of frustrated efforts, Democratic supporters attached the measure to the must-pass defense policy bill over the steep objections of many Republicans.
The measure was a priority of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., that had been on the congressional agenda for a decade. During the signing ceremony, Obama acknowledged Shepard's mom, Judy, and remembered that he had told her this day would come. He also gave a nod to Kennedy's family. Going forward, Obama promised, people will be protected from violence based on "what they look like, who they love, how they pray or why they are."
Read or watch President Obama's remarks before signing the legislation:
"After more than a decade of opposition and delay, we've passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray, or who they are. I promised Judy Shepard, when she saw me in the Oval Office, that this day would come, and I'm glad that she and her husband Dennis could join us for this event. I'm also honored to have the family of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought so hard for this legislation. And Vicki and Patrick, Kara, everybody who's here, I just want you all to know how proud we are of the work that Ted did to help this day -- make this day possible. So -- and thank you for joining us here today. (Applause.) So, with that, I'm going to sign this piece of legislation."
This brought tears to my eyes - I am so glad I am living in these times to witness this. I will never forget when my boyfriend phoned me to tell me about the Shepherd death and how he would 'never let anything like that happen to me' - I was moved by his protection but disturbed that he felt the need to say it - that he felt that as gay men we were particularly vulnerable. A piece of paper alone doesn't make the violence go away but it sends a message and a strong one that this is a society that will not tolerate this kind of violence and will therefore also put in place more attention to its cause. Historic!
Every crime is a tragedy. But this legislation is a waste of time. The crime committed already broke a number of existing laws. At its core, every crime is a hate crime. If one man is robbed and killed and we know nothing about his sexual orientation, religious persuasion etc, is it any less or different of a crime than a man killed who is known by these orientations?
When Bernard Madoff stole billions of dollars from investors, we don't need new laws and regulations to enforce. We simply need better enforcement of existing laws.
I was interested to see this bit of video and the above comment saying that a new law is a waste of time. There are most likely so many different reasons for hating another person enough to damage or kill them that we could never bring into existence enough laws to cover them all individually, but any new law that makes it easier to protect the vulnerable from harm from others is, to me, a good one.
First of all....my heart goes out to anyone who has lost a loved one!
But......Are you freaking kidding me..... a hate crime bill!!!
Are we going to have thought police now?? Where does this end?? Do you actually think that when someone murders another person that it makes a difference if they hate them or if they like them? The person is still just as dead!! And murder is still just as wrong!! So what happens when straight white men get beaten or murdered?? Is that less of a crime? What if a Black person, and yes I said Black and not African-American, murders a White person because they hate White people..... will that be considered a hate crime as well?? These laws only serve to divide "us", and that is "U.S." as in United States. When are we going to start acting like "One", and stop letting the government divide us into separate groups to be played against one another? United we stand and divided we fall. This is discrimination by a legal system that is supposed to be blind.