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House to vote on Hate Crimes bill as early as Wednesday-- contact your Congressperson [Updated]
Today the House adopted a rule
on H.R. 1913, known as the Hate Crimes bill or, in previous Congresses,
as the Matthew Shepard Act. This means they can be expected to take up
and vote on the bill within the next few days-- and according to the Advocate will vote as early as tomorrow, Wednesday. (The Senate version
of the bill was also introduced today but may take longer to come to a
vote.) If this is an issue you're following, the time to contact your
Congressperson is now. You can do this easily by calling 866-346-4611, the House switchboard.
If you haven't been following this bill, you can find its text here. It does two simple things:
And just to be clear about this, because there's been a lot of misinformation about this bill: Yes, it has to be a violent crime-- assault or murder, or attempted assault or murder-- to fall under the classification of "hate crime". Nothing is illegal under H.R. 1913 which wouldn't have been illegal already.
H.R. 1913 is a big deal not just for what it does, but because it is the first salvo in a larger upcoming struggle over LGBT equality at the Federal level. The White House has laid out an aggressive agenda on LGBT rights, but up until this last week there has been silence from the Democratic leadership on implementing that agenda. That agenda is now finally being put into practice. Nancy Pelosi this week explained the schedule for this year, rephrasing a comment she has made several times this year, "we have the hate crimes legislation first and the ENDA [Employment Nondiscrimination Act] bill the next step after that". The other two big issues on the White House's gay rights agenda-- federal recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions, and a removal of the ban on gays in the military-- are, according to both Pelosi and Barney Frank, on hold until next year.
This is a realistic schedule-- ENDA and Matthew Shepard are both bills with known support, both of which very almost passed into law in the last Congress and were stopped only due to maneuvering from the Bush White House and procedural errors by the House leadership, so it makes sense to prioritize those first. Still, it's going to take a lot of work to get these bills into law, especially given that the version of ENDA coming up in this Congress is more aggressive (i.e. trans-inclusive) than the one considered last Congress; and anyone who supports LGBT equality will need to keep on the Democrats in specific and the Congress in general to harness the momentum from these two bills into the more difficult fights over DADT and recognition of relationships next year.
UPDATE: C-SPAN is showing the house vote at 247-175 and completed. HR 1913 passes the House. Next hurdle is the Senate...
If you haven't been following this bill, you can find its text here. It does two simple things:
- Expands
the existing definition of a "hate crime" to include gender identity,
sexual orientation, and disability . (Under existing law, if someone
commits a violent crime against someone which is motivated by the
victim's race or religion, then that crime receives a harsher sentence
than it would otherwise. HR 1913 simply expands the classes protected
by this rule.)
- Gives federal law enforcement greater leeway
and resources to investigate and prosecute hate crimes, in case local
law enforcement lacks the resources to, or chooses not to, investigate.
And just to be clear about this, because there's been a lot of misinformation about this bill: Yes, it has to be a violent crime-- assault or murder, or attempted assault or murder-- to fall under the classification of "hate crime". Nothing is illegal under H.R. 1913 which wouldn't have been illegal already.
H.R. 1913 is a big deal not just for what it does, but because it is the first salvo in a larger upcoming struggle over LGBT equality at the Federal level. The White House has laid out an aggressive agenda on LGBT rights, but up until this last week there has been silence from the Democratic leadership on implementing that agenda. That agenda is now finally being put into practice. Nancy Pelosi this week explained the schedule for this year, rephrasing a comment she has made several times this year, "we have the hate crimes legislation first and the ENDA [Employment Nondiscrimination Act] bill the next step after that". The other two big issues on the White House's gay rights agenda-- federal recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions, and a removal of the ban on gays in the military-- are, according to both Pelosi and Barney Frank, on hold until next year.
This is a realistic schedule-- ENDA and Matthew Shepard are both bills with known support, both of which very almost passed into law in the last Congress and were stopped only due to maneuvering from the Bush White House and procedural errors by the House leadership, so it makes sense to prioritize those first. Still, it's going to take a lot of work to get these bills into law, especially given that the version of ENDA coming up in this Congress is more aggressive (i.e. trans-inclusive) than the one considered last Congress; and anyone who supports LGBT equality will need to keep on the Democrats in specific and the Congress in general to harness the momentum from these two bills into the more difficult fights over DADT and recognition of relationships next year.
UPDATE: C-SPAN is showing the house vote at 247-175 and completed. HR 1913 passes the House. Next hurdle is the Senate...
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Amendment 8: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
What particular attribute of of a gay, lesbian, disabled or ethnic person makes his or her life worth more than mine in terms of punishment against those who would attempt to usurp that life?
What possible legal framework can be claimed fair, impartial and blind when a criminal can beat the shit out of me to receive only 10 years in prison but for the exact same crime (save his mental reasoning) can do so to another and receive a 20-year sentence?
Is it only possible to protect those covered by HR 1913 from violent crime by implicitly defining me as a less valuable human being?
Please forgive me for not singing with glee over the prospect of codified "hate crimes", as our country takes yet another step on the journey toward Orwellianism.
April 29, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi,
Hate crimes laws are not about the identity of the victim but rather the intent of the criminal. When someone is attacked specifically for being a member of a group, the intent is to strike not just at the individual victim, but at the entire group. This has the effect of causing harm to the group as a whole, each member of which receives an implicit threat-- you could be next. What hate crimes laws do is recognize that someone who does this-- strikes an individual to terrorize a group-- has both committed an act more damaging to society, and is a greater future threat to society, than someone who commits a normal crime*.
Aside from this, all groups are covered by hate crimes laws. You already receive protection under hate crimes statutes due to your racial and religious status-- whatever that is. If HR 1913 passes you will technically also be covered under the gender and orientation classifiations, as a straight person (in case, for example, you run into a man-killing lesbian biker gang, as portrayed in the well-known 1965 documentary "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!").
Now it might be, in practice, that the specific groups you personally are a member of-- such as straight, white, Christian, male, maybe?-- are in practice unlikely to be targeted by bias crimes, and thus less likely to wind up in a situation covered by hate crimes laws. This is not a flaw in the law-- it is the reason for the law in the first place. The goal of the law is to provide a counterbalance against the effect by which some groups are targeted more than others-- not because those groups are "worth" more, but because they live under greater risk.
* If you think about it this is similar to how we punish first-degree murder more seriously than second-degree murder-- the crime is the same, but the premeditated intent of the criminal makes them more of a threat to society in the eyes of the law.
April 29, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your thoughts.
Please explain further - your first two sentences seems contradictory:
How is "being a member of group" NOT about the "identity of the victim"?
The law is fallacious. When a criminal is attempting to injure, kidnap, kill or rape me, the natural assumption is that he or she does not like me for some reason(s). Hence, a "perceived" (as the law states) bias against some aspect of my identity.
But setting aside the entire individual argument for a moment, let's run a thought experiment.
A serial killer who targets only women. Would this constitute a hate crime?
What about one who targets indiscriminately? Think John Mohammed and Lee Malvo. They are attempting to terrorize a group (e.g. everyone) by killing individuals. Why were their actions not "hate crimes" just against a larger group? If I kill you because I hate people in general, would this be a hate crime?
The point here, of course, is to question what makes one group of people so special above others that they are bestowed higher status from the law? And what serves of the basis for gradation of those groups?
Sadly, I find this comical:
It is good to know that my safety is "technically" assured (implication: yeah, but not REALLY), and disturbing that you find it worthy of cracking jokes.
Circular and uncorrelated argument. Yes, certain groups of people are at more risk. But this has everything to do with their socio-economic challenges and extremely little to do with their genetic makeup.
Listen, hate crimes are terrible and disgusting. But the inescapable truth, as you so eloquently point out here: The goal of the law is to provide a counterbalance is that hate crime laws fundamentally are unequal justice. If you really, truly believe what you are saying; if you actually subscribe to the notion of a free, fair and just society, you should minimally consider investing the effort to rethink your support of this legislation. I hope you are able to reach a conclusion more worthy of your moral strength.
May 1, 2009 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
For the record, the House is indeed debating this bill right now and are apparently going to vote on it today. The debate is on the C-SPAN live feed as I type this.
April 29, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink