Hate Crimes Bill Will Become Law In America
This hate crimes bill should have been passed many years ago. Tonight Teddy Kennedy is looking down and smiling at a bill he worked for year after year to have passed and signed into law. I was most certain that this Congress would take the appropriate action, as they did today by a vote of 68-29. This policy has been championed by many fine people across the land, and tonight we owe them all a deep thank you. The nation now awaits President Obama’s signature.
The Senate cleared a historic hate crimes bill for President Obama’s signature Thursday, approving new federal penalties for attacks on gays and lesbians.
The legislation, which was attached to the conference report for the bill outlining the Pentagon’s budget, marks the culmination of a years-long fight by civil-rights groups to codify the expanded protections. The law broadens the current definition of federal hate crimes — which covers attacks motivated by race, color, religion or national origin — to include those based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It would also create a new federal crime to cover attacks against U.S. military personnel because of their service.
The measure was approved, 68 to 29, with a majority of Republicans voting against it. The House passed the same bill Oct. 8, also with most Republicans opposed.
Gay rights groups praised the Senate’s action.
“We look forward to President Obama signing it into law: our nation’s first major piece of civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Too many in our community have been devastated by hate violence. We now can begin the important steps to erasing hate in our country.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who helped ensure that the hate crimes measure was added to the defense bill, called the vote a necessary step forward. “I am proud that Congress has come together to show that violence against members of any group because of who they are will not be tolerated in this country,” he said.
The hate crimes measure is named for Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998, and James Byrd Jr., a black man who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas in 1998. Shepard’s family founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which helped lobby for the measure that is now set to become law. Offered repeatedly by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), the bill had stalled previously in the Senate, and President George W. Bush vowed to veto it if it ever reached his desk.
