What Is Wrong with the Federal Hate Crime Law?
“You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”–Lyndon JohnsonAfter 12 years of protracted debate, it looks as if the nation will finally get a federal hate crimes law that includes gay people as a protected class. All this despite the fact, according to the FBI, that of the nearly 1.5 million violent crimes in the U.S. in 2007, only 1,460 were reportedly based on sexual orientation. Repeated attempts have been made over the past decade to expand the Civil Rights Act of 1968 to include crimes motivated by a person’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The most recent legislative attempt, the Matthew Shepard Act, in memory of a gay college student who was savagely beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998, was passed by both houses of Congress in 2007, only to be vetoed by President Bush. However, Presiden
“You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”–Lyndon JohnsonAfter 12 years of protracted debate, it looks as if the nation will finally get a federal hate crimes law that includes gay people as a protected class. All this despite the fact, according to the FBI, that of the nearly 1.5 million violent crimes in the U.S. in 2007, only 1,460 were reportedly based on sexual orientation. Repeated attempts have been made over the past decade to expand the Civil Rights Act of 1968 to include crimes motivated by a person’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The most recent legislative attempt, the Matthew Shepard Act, in memory of a gay college student who was savagely beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998, was passed by both houses of Congress in 2007, only to be vetoed by President Bush. However, Presiden
