Videotaped gay-bashing incident shows necessity of Hate Crime Prevention Act

October 22, 9:46 PMSonoma County Civil Rights ExaminerMegan Coffey

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Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother. Photo: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

On an early morning just days before the Senate passed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act on October 22, a surveillance camera in Queens, NY recorded a brutal gay-bashing incident that highlights the need for the new law, which expands the definition of a federal hate crime to include physical attacks on persons because of their gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. Having already passed the House, the measure now goes to the desk of President Obama, who has promised to sign the legislation.

In the Queens, NY attack that was captured on video, an openly-gay man was viciously kicked and punched by two young men yelling anti-gay slurs. The victim, 49-year-old Jack Price, suffered a broken jaw, fractured ribs, collapsed lungs, and a lacerated spleen, and had to be placed in a medically-induced coma. Thanks to the video evidence, both attackers have been arrested and charged with hate crimes (New York is one of 31 states with anti-gay hate crimes legislation).

The new law, named for hate crime victims Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., will make it possible for New York state officials to solicit help from the US Justice Department with investigating and prosecuting attacks like the one in Queens. If such crimes occur in states without hate crime laws, or in states where hate crime laws are not enforced, the new measure will allow the DOJ to step in when local authorities fail to prosecute hate-motivated violence against women, the disabled, or the LGBT community (as well as attacks based on the victims’ race or religion). This legislation also provides funding to help state and local governments pay for hate crime prosecution and preventive youth programs.

The federal Hate Crime Prevention Act was introduced almost a dozen years ago, but was defeated again and again by staunch opposition from the Bush administration and Republican members of Congress. Since the bill’s introduction, according to Attorney General Eric Holder, nearly 80,000 hate crime incidents have been reported to the FBI, about 16% of which involved sexual orientation.

Despite the combination of these statistics and the recent gay-bashing in Queens, a number of Republican senators still voted against the bill, ostensibly because it discriminates against anti-gay Christians. Although the language of the measure explicitly defines hate crimes as violent acts, not defamatory speech, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) worried that the bill was a “dangerous step” toward silencing people who “speak out too loudly about their religious views.”

No doubt Jack Price—along with the entire LGBT community and its allies—has already heard them loud and clear.