Regardless of your views on hate crimes laws, they already exist at the federal level and already cover the religious right. If they're going to exist at all, shouldn't they cover everyone, and not just the staff of the Family Research Council, American Family Association, and the men at the Concerned Women for America?
Today, Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Gordon Smith, R-Ore., filed the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act(S. 1105) as an amendment for consideration to the Department of Defense reauthorization currently being debated before the U.S. Senate. The bill, commonly referred to as the “hate crimes bill,” could receive a Senate vote as early as today. The virtually identical House version of the bill passed overwhelmingly on May 3, 2007, with a bipartisan vote of 237 to 180 — with more than 20 Republicans voting in support of the bill.....
TheMatthew Shepard Act is supported by more than 290 law enforcement, civil rights, civic and religious organizations. Some of those supporting organizations include the National Sheriffs Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 26 state attorneys general, the National District Attorneys Association, the NAACP, the Episcopal Church, the League of Women Voters, the YWCA of the USA and the United Methodist Church....
This legislation would help combat hate crimes across America by doing two important things: updating the federal hate crimes laws to include all Americans, and providing new resources and tools to assist local law enforcement in prosecuting these vicious crimes.
In addition to this year’s overwhelming, bipartisan vote in the House to support this legislation, both the Senate and House have voted in favor of legislation to combat bias-motivated violence in prior Congresses. Most recently, in the 109th Congress, the House of Representative approved its hate crimes bill as an amendment on a bipartisan vote of 223 to 199. House and Senate votes were held in the 106th and 108th Congress as well. In the 108th Congress, the Senate passed the measure by an overwhelming vote of 65 to 33, with 18 Senate Republicans voting yes, and the House approved it on a bipartisan vote of 213 to 186, with 31 Republicans voting yes.
