The Matthew Shepard Act passed!

[nenya_kanadka]

From the Matthew Shepard Foundation homepage:

The legislation is formally entitled, the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (S. 1105). It was offered as a bipartisan amendment by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) to the Department of Defense authorization bill currently before the U.S. Senate. The virtually identical House version of the bill passed overwhelmingly on May 3rd, 2007 with a bipartisan vote of 237 to 180 as an appropriate and measured response to the unrelenting and under-addressed problem of hates crimes against individuals based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability.

Current federal hate crimes law permits the federal prosecution of a hate crime only if the hate crime was motivated by bias based on race, color, religion, or national origin and the assailant intends to prevent the victim from exercising a "federally protected right" such as the right to vote or attend school. If this legislation is signed by the president, the law will be expanded to protect the GLBT community as well as remove the restrictions on what type of acts can be considered applicable under hate crime law.

Woohoo!

--although I wonder if the President will try to get out of signing it?

Comments

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

I've never really understood the whole point of hate crime legislation. If someone does something awful to someone, they should go to jail. I'm not really caring why they did it. But if hate crime laws cover race and religion, they should cover all the various differences that are the subject of hate by well-armed bigots.

I see no reason the president shouldn't sign it. He can't very well be for senseless beatings, can he?

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

Hell yeah.

And no doubt he will, but if it's survived this long, I think it stands a decent chance.

[hoppytoad79.livejournal.com]

Fabulous! We shall see what Shrub the Schlub does.