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President Obama hugs Matthew Shepard's father Dennis after signing the Hate Crime Prevention Act into law. Photo: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
The expanded federal Hate Crime Prevention Act, named for 1998 victims Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. and signed into law by President Obama on October 28, may end up being much more significant than its scope would suggest.
Although the Department of Justice avers that hate crime statutes deter bias-motivated attacks, it offers no statistics to substantiate that claim. Certainly the original 1969 federal law—which covered hate crimes based on the victims’ race, color, religion or national origin—was not sufficient to save the life of the new law’s less famous namesake, James Byrd, Jr., who was killed because he was black. And even if the new measure had been in effect when its other namesake, Matthew Shepard, was killed for being gay, it is unlikely that his crystal-meth-bingeing attackers would have been rational enough to be deterred by the threat of increased sentencing penalties for their crime.
What is much more certain about this latest incarnation of federal hate crime law is that it is the first ever piece of federal legislation protecting LGBT rights to become the law of the land (and the first federal measure to explicitly protect transgender people). This fact could make the new statute far more significant than its debatable impact as a deterrent to bias-motivated violence. By its recognition that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans represent a group of people likely to be the targets of discrimination, the Hate Crime Prevention Act could be used to argue that LGBT citizens represent a “suspect class,” and as such, are deserving of “strict scrutiny” regarding any regulations affecting them.
In lay terms, this means that it may now be much harder for any government in the US to pass laws that discriminate against gay and transgender people, such as Proposition 8 in California or Question 1 in Maine. It also may speed the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the demise of DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Who knows but that this one seemingly modest new hate crime law could signal the beginning of a whole new era of civil rights recognition for LGBT Americans….
Comments
You hit the nail right on the head. This is EXACTLY what we are hoping for. :)
The issue with Proposition 8 is that it wasn't passed by the legislature; it was passed through a citizen initiative that requires absolutely no constitutional checks. Even the lawsuit a few months ago merely dealt with whether or not it was a valid amendment to the constitution, and not the legality of its content.
That being said, the root issue, IMO, lies not in the fact that LGBT people are not considered a "suspect class" federally, but that while there is no federal stance on the issue, states are free to discriminate as much as they want through these loopholes (ie a direct-democracy ballot proposition process).
So much for the republic, eh? =|
You make a very good point.
Interesting article.
Ultimitely, it is not the voters, not the politicians, not the law-makers who will have the final say in the matter of LGTB Rights. It is the United States Constitution.
The same Constitution that heterosexuals feel they have successfully carved their LGTB children out of is the very document that will free us from decades and decades of oppression by the very people that created every single LGTB person on the planet.
THE LAW DEMANDS THAT IT MUST BE SO.
Aside from the intended punitive aspects of this bill, and the drama surrounding it, Megan's insightful parsing of this law is very right on and astute. Given the ignorant hate aimed at the LGBT community in the USA we cannot expect significant leaps forward in gaining equality. So we must work piecemeal, layer by layer to pass 'small' legislation to create wedges between hate-mongers' attitudes and their immoral-yet-legal ability to discriminate publicly with actions such as Prop 8, DOMA, DADT and picketing gay funerals.
gay people are just weird. men who think they're women, and women are guys without peckers yet until the final operation. anyone who walks down and up Polk Street will realize there are some really screwed up sexual types around. no wonder their parents threw them out, it's an insult what they raised all these years. now chaz bono wants to be a man, what's next? apes trying to human prototypes and for real? the queer movement is about screwd up people who thought they were born wrong sexually. I was a stock boy borned to be a vice president.
Are some of you people all really this stupid this heartless? We are talking the natural born rights American citizen and you so willing to put these PEOPLE through the agony of the whims and fancies of the popular vote by petition system.
Would you as heterosexuals have your basic rights as American citizen and human beings so harshly treated as this? I think not.
Even if the Peoples of the LGBT Communities win one petition powered popular vote on a law to affirm their rights as human beings , what about the next petition powered popular vote on that same law and the one after that and the one that one and so on and so on to infinity. The constant struggles to affirm the basic rights that we were all born with as American Citizens and this really makes sense to you "good" "people"?
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222861/Pensioner-complained-gay-pride-march-warned-police-hate-crime.html
Grandmother who objected to gay march is accused of hate crime
After witnessing a gay pride march, committed Christian Pauline Howe wrote to the council to complain that the event had been allowed to go ahead.
But instead of a simple acknowledgement, she received a letter warning her she might be guilty of a hate crime and that the matter had been passed to police.
Two officers later turned up at the frightened grandmother's home and lectured her about her choice of words before telling her she would not be prosecuted.
Mrs Howe, 67, whose husband Peter is understood to be a Baptist minister, yesterday spoke of her shock at the visit and accused police of ' wasting resources' on her case rather than fighting crime.
'I've never been in any kind of trouble before so I was stunned to have two police officers knocking at my door,' she said.
Shepard was not killed for being gay. This bill is nothing more than an attack on the church. There are already laws on the books to deal with violent crime.
This law is to silence anyone from speaking truth. Homosexuality is unnatural, immoral and unhealthy, some things no law can change.
Shepard was not killed for being gay. This bill is nothing more than an attack on the church. There are already laws on the books to deal with violent crime.
This law is to silence anyone from speaking truth. Homosexuality is unnatural, immoral and unhealthy, some things no law can change.
yes, of course, the thousands of gays bullied, lynched and killed are totally doing it to make pastors shut up. XD ya right, Christians, this is NOT about you. This is about giving a group of people protection from you. But then again, you did rally against integration and only after Loving V Virginia were blacks afforded full marriage rights, much to your chagrin.
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