Passage of Hate Crimes Act Is Only A First Step

While I applaud the passage of the hate crimes bill last week by the U.S. Congress and look forward to it being signed into law by President Obama, the Act does not represent an end to hate crimes in the USA. Unfortunately, religious based discrimination and animus will continue to be alive and well as Christianists and professional Christians and politicians like Taliban Bob McDonnell and Ken "Kook" Cuccinelli continue to do their utmost to depict GLBT citizens as immoral, less worthy than other Americans and undeserving of fully equality under the civil laws. Keeping us unequal under the law is a huge priority for our enemies because it allows the gay-haters to point to the laws as supporting their bigoted judgment of us. Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that as these forces slowly lose the battle which they ultimately cannot win, they may become even more strident and violent in their attacks on GLBT citizens. The recent spate of hate crimes both in the USA and elsewhere may be an example of the type of hysteria that can be expected as the tide of history moves against these people. David Badish at the Bilerico Project has a column that looks at this phenomenon and points out that there is still work to be done. Here are some highlights:

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Thursday's historic passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is cause for celebration. The first federal legislation to provide inclusive protections for the GLBTQ community, this hate crimes bill will extend significant protections to many Americans. But we cannot think we're done. This is, in fact, just the beginning.
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Gays in this country are increasingly becoming victims of violent, and deadly hate crimes. New York City, certainly more "gay-friendly" than many towns and cities across America, has been host to several brutal beatings this year. Among other incidents, New Yorkers have suffered beatings on a tony Upper East Side street, outside a Hell's Kitchen neighborhood restaurant, and the latest, the vicious beating of forty-nine year-old Jack Price - caught on tape - in blue-collar Queens. Kicked and beaten by two young men less than half his age, Price had to be put into a medically-induced coma. One of the men arrested in the attack claimed not to be homophobic, yet proudly displayed for the media's cameras his (misquoted) Leviticus 18:22 tattoo: "You shall not lie with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination."

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Yes, Thursday's passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is cause for celebration. But it will also be a rallying cry - to those like Rep. King, and to those like the American Family Association, whose latest call to action offered this attack:. . . "Everywhere hate crimes laws have gone into effect, they have been quickly used to intimidate, silence and punish people of faith who express deeply held religious objections to the normalization of homosexuality."

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What we need to do is work to ensure more victims of hate crimes report them, work to support those who become victims, and work to find and extinguish the source of what motivates those to commit these crimes in the first place. Let's use this hard-fought success to rally our troops and ensure the momentum we've built this year doesn't end with the hate crimes bill. Let's redouble our efforts to see repeal of DADT and DOMA, and enactment of ENDA.