It’s been ten years since the brutal, hate motivated murder of Matthew Shepard. Unfortunately up until recently, federal government still lacked the authority to investigate, prosecute, or help local law enforcement crack down on hate crimes. On April 29th federal government got that right when Congress passed a HR 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act -- passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 249 to 175.

 

There was much debate in Washington D.C over whether or not HR 1913 was a worthy bill to pass. Many non-supporters claimed the bill didn’t protect certain groups of people and focused to much on gay people, arguing that hate crimes can be committed on other people too. The FBI reported that out of 1.4 million violent crimes in 2007 only 247 of those had anything to do with gay people. Others claim that hate crimes have dropped over the last 10 years so extra protection under the new act isn’t necessary. Rep. Michelle Bachman had this to say about HR 1913:

 

“Apparently people who are practicing pedophiles would be considered protected under this legislation, but not, I understand, veterans, not, I understand, pregnant women, not, I understand, 85-year-old grandmothers would be protected under this law,” she said. “But who would be protected? A pedophile, someone who considers themselves gay, someone who considers themselves transgender, someone who considers themselves a cross-dresser? That is who is protected.”

 

Just as a reminder, pedophilia is not a sexual orientation but a criminal act. More importantly, one in six hate crimes are motivated by sexual orientation and gender identity/expression bias. Recently a Colorado court convicted Allen Andrade of first degree murder and a bias-motivated crime in the death of 18-year-old transgender woman Angie Zapata. It was one of the first times in the country that a state's hate crimes statute was used in the investigation and prosecution of an anti-transgender murder case. A trend that the government hopes to continue with the passing of HR 1913.

 

Under HR 1913, the federal Government can now oversee local law enforcements handling of each case and make sure there is no bias and that law enforcement follows through with prosecution.  Supporters of the HR 1913 say this has been a problem in the past in certain states where hate crimes are often not taken seriously or prosecution is delayed.

The bill is now awaiting Senate action. To get involved or for more information go to www.mathewshepard.org or www.familyequality.org.