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Written by DCist Contributor Fredo Alvarez
In a 60-39 cloture vote, the U.S. Senate barely passed the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (S 1105) today as an amendment to the FY 2008 Defense Authorization Bill (HR 1585). The measure would expand protection against hate crimes to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, and would enable the Federal government to provide assistance in the investigation or prosecution of those crimes. All Democrats and Independents voted for the amendment, and were joined by nine Republicans: Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio), and John Warner (R-Va.). Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was the only one not to vote on the amendment.
President Bush had threatened to veto the stand-alone bill when it passed the House in May, deeming it unnecessary. In a political gambit, however, the Senate voted to add it to the Department of Defense authorization bill, which would authorize funding for Defense programs, the Army, Air Force, and Navy. Republican opponents decried the move, saying that placing hate crimes legislation threatens troop funding. Proponents reject this argument, saying that this helps the enforcement of hate crimes in the military. The President has never vetoed a Defense Authorization bill, and supporters are betting that he will not want to be the first. He may not have to make that decision, however. The provision will first have to survive a House-Senate conference committee before it reaches the President's desk.
Hate crimes laws which protect LGBT people are already on the books in Maryland and the District. In Virginia, such protections including the LGBT community are not granted at the state level, but local jurisdictions such as Arlington and Fairfax counties do offer them.
According to the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department, D.C.'s law is among the most far reaching in the U.S. Recently, D.C. has also seen its share of hate crimes against the LGBT community in recent weeks, the most recent being an attack on a Human Rights Campaign employee near Be Bar in Shaw.
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About time.
And what's the deal with the nincompoop GOP breeders who think that they can't be hated on the basis of their sexuality, again?
CORRECTION
The most recent was a gay-bashing in Georgetown by a GU student.
no fist, the article's right, the Georgetown attack was Sept. 9th. Be Bar was the 13th... http://www.nbc4.com/news/14220817/detail.html
They're only picking up the scum bag now....
Finally we're on the way to becomming a nation that officially takes a stance against hetero-supremacists! Discrimination is plain immoral and unjust, regardless of whether it takes shape along lines of race, gender, sexuality, culture, or any other difference. We're diverse people living in a diverse world -- whether evolved, intelligently designed, or just plain random. Life is at is supposed to be, and we can not allow people to appoint themselves judges of which ways of living are acceptable and which are not, as such a judgment will always be selfish, closed-minded, and subjective. Acting on such discrimination eliminates the individual freedom that we're born with, which is very much an inalienable right. Whether it rears its head in murder and other violence, or just in the tyrannical majority taking away the rights of certain minorities to live their lives to the fullest, discrimination is a violation of the dignity given to all of us at birth.
If only Congress would go further than saying that that unprovoked violence against gays is wrong. Maybe someday gay Americans will have the freedom to marry and live open and public lives proudly without fear of discrimination. Until then, our government is essentially telling us, "Gays...you can't live with 'em but you can't kill 'em." Why would that be the sentiment if people could just accept differences in behavior as equal in ultimate human value?
I'd guess it's because so many politicians are closet cases, and fear for what would become of their careers if they'd live out their fantasies with truth to their inner convictions. It's easier to pander to small-town voices of hatred and misunderstanding, rather than to lead by example and teach the nation and the world that freedom must extend to gay people too.
And aside from conforming to the mass-produced idea of what is politically acceptable, I also believe that most people are just more comfortable conforming to the simplest ideas of how to live their lives, reducing anything they can to a black-or-white dichotomy instead of the multifaceted, diverse, and unpredictable reality that life deals us. Instead of expending the energy to live to our inner potential, and the time to think about what is moral and good, too many people are content to live based on what will appeal to the masses rather than what is right on an individual level. But until the masses are educated and shown how diverse life truly is, they will only accept the most dumbed-down and predictable people to lead them. Which will result in our government only tackling issues that are good for the few who agree on their specifics, rather than the issues that benefit us all in a more general sense.
So Senator Craig voted against? Or perhaps he was out on a bathroom break.
Yeah, but even in the bathroom I bet he'd still be able to pull the lever in favor of gay rights...if he wasn't a hypocrite. He'd rather be known for disorderly conduct of vaguely sexual nature, than for noncriminal conduct of gay nature.
I pretty sure most crimes where one nearly kills or merely harms someone, anyone, cover gays.
Besides during sentencing don't courts take into consideration the circumstances surrounding the crime?
Also, have the posts on this website gotten a bit too snarky of late?
unconstitutional. you can't propose harsher punishments for the same crime just because of the sexual preference, race, religion of the victim. equal protection under the constitution. this does not say those scumbags who do this stuff shouldn't be punished severely... but they should be punished the same amount as anyone else. you can't have a system that puts an attacker in prison for 1 year if the victim is white, 2 if they are black, 3 if they are homosexual, 4 if they are buddhist, etc.
Ah my favorite.. the ol "It's unconstitutional cause I say so". Appeals courts have upheld the constitutionality of these laws, and SCOTUS has never chosen to directly review it themselves. SCOTUS has held that state hate-crime laws are constitutional (Wisconsin v. Mitchell, unanimous decision).
The only logical conclusion is that the Court believes the federal laws to be constitutional, as well.
These laws do not impose a harsher punishment for the same crime. They specify that bias-motivated attacks are harsher crimes, so harsher penalties are warranted.
"These laws do not impose a harsher punishment for the same crime. They specify that bias-motivated attacks are harsher crimes, so harsher penalties are warranted."
Not sure I agree with this argument. If my wife was attacked and maimed for her purse or jewelry, and a homosexual was attacked and maimed because he/she is homosexual, that is the same crime. The motivations are different (money vs. hate), but the act itself is no different.
I support equal rights for homosexuals in all facets of life, but I've always had a problem with hate crime legislation because it places a greater weight on the crime's motivation than the act of the crime itself. Battery/assault/murder is the same regardless of the perpetrator's reasons for committing the act. People who attack homosexuals simply because they're homosexuals are revolting, but their crime is no worse than that of the person who attacks another for money or possessions.
The SCOTUS has upheld a number of questionable statutes; simply because they have cast their support behind this type of legislation doesn't necessarily mean that it's good legislation.
"The SCOTUS has upheld a number of questionable statutes; simply because they have cast their support behind this type of legislation doesn't necessarily mean that it's good legislation."
I'll agree there, but the fact is that if SCOTUS upholds something, it is by definition Constitutional. That's just how the system works. I never said the law was necessarily good, I was just responding to 8's claim that it's unconstitutional. (That said, my view is if we're going to have hate-crime laws, sexual orientation should be covered.. but I'm not really sold on the idea of hate-crime laws in general, for the reasons you state)
"that is the same crime... their crime is no worse"
By passing laws such as this, the Legislature (be it state or federal) seems to disagree, and they're the ones that get to define crimes and punishment guidelines.
MS, how is the post snarky?
I'm guessing guest 8 & 10 hasn't been subject to hate or violence because of something he can't control. Tagg Romney, is that you?
The entire criminal justice system has gradated punishments for the “same” crime. If you end someone's life by planning it out in advance you get a harsher punishment than if you killed someone by accident with your car: first-degree murder vs. vehicular manslaughter. The "crime" is still the same in that the person is dead. If you take a different perspective and allow that they are not indeed the same crime due to motivation, then a hate-motivated crime is different than those motivated by other reasons and should be its own class of crime.
1. A crime of opportunity is not the same as a crime of hatred and depravity. It is unfortunate that juries can't be guaranteed to be sensitive to the rights and dignity of minorities, therefore having guidelines to try people who commit hate crimes out of prejudice aids the system to ensure justice even when some jurors might also be personally biased against the minority.
2. Not only violent crimes count as hate crimes. I'm sure most people would agree that it's not as bad for a vandal to tag some random slop [BORF] on someone else's home than it is to paint swastikas, burn crosses, or make signs that tell the fags to get out. Hate crime guidelines also address the uniquely violent intent in vandalism such as this.
3. Criminal law is not only a guideline for punishment, but a deterrent to prevent people from committing crimes. Maybe knowing that the penalty for a hate crime is steeper than a generic crime, someone would think twice and be deterred from the crime out.
4. Hate crime laws do not sort out which minorities are better than others. Whether the victim is specifically black, gay, Buddhist, etc. doesn't matter. However, in an unfortunate society in which minorities are singled out and disproportionally targeted by criminals, laws that disproportionally target these hateful criminals do in effect provide the minorities with equal protection under the law. I will acknowledge that there is some measure of bias or discrimination in the laws -- but their purpose is not to say that minorities are better than the majority, but that they are just as good. And if a certain group of people are victimized at a higher rate than the average citizen -- whether the victims are the residents of a high crime neighborhood, the affluent, or a social minority -- it only makes sense to step-up policing or other security measures. And that is the purpose of hate crime legislation.
Hopefully some day we will not have any hatred lead us to violence or destruction. But in the meantime, if Congress feels a need for racial hate crime legislation, they absolutely must extend the same protection to all minorities. And simply repealing hate crime legislation because it discriminates in some general way will not work without another solution, as hate crime laws do indeed make life for people of minority backgrounds almost as safe as it is for those of the majority. And that effect is what the spirit as well as the literal body of the Constitution intend by equal protection. Not the same laws, but the same level of protection through law.
5. MS, what makes a posting too snarky? I don't think this thread is particularly snide or sarcastic, especially when compared to lots of other DCist articles. So is the issue that you happen to disagree with the news that the article reports?
"The entire criminal justice system has gradated punishments for the “same” crime. If you end someone's life by planning it out in advance you get a harsher punishment than if you killed someone by accident with your car"
That is indeed true, but you're not arguing against what I (guest 10) was saying. If you premeditate a murder on your ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend, is that a lesser crime than premeditating a murder on the homosexual down the street? I should think not. Equal enforcement does not prohibit differing standards for similar criminal acts.
"Maybe knowing that the penalty for a hate crime is steeper than a generic crime, someone would think twice and be deterred from the crime out."
What is a "generic crime"? Is attacking your ex-lover, the guy who made an obscene gesture at you in the bar, or the guy who yelled something inappropriate at your girlfriend a "generic crime"? How, philosophically, is that different from attacking someone because they are black or gay?
You say "And if a certain group of people are victimized at a higher rate than the average citizen...it only makes sense to step-up policing or other security measures." Yes, it makes sense to increase policing, but it doesn't follow that people who commit crimes against minorities *because* they're minorities should be viewed differently in the eyes of the law than any other criminal. I'm quite certain that women are attacked on the street more than men--should the punishment for mugging a woman therefore be greater than for mugging a man? Male-on-female rape is far more prevalent than male-on-male rape, should men who rape women pay a steeper price than men who rape other men?
I understand and sympathize with the rationale behind hate crime legislation, and it's very unfortunate that we even have to think in these terms, as a society. But I maintain a fundamental disagreement with their application.