Hate Crimes Bill

Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of nearly 200 religious and civil liberties groups recently called the Hate Crimes Bill now before the Senate "one of the most important civil rights issues currently facing the country.

The measure would expand coverage of federal hate crimes laws to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability, adding them to racial, ethnic, and religious categories already protected under the law. It would allow federal assistance to local law enforcement authorities and federal intervention in situations of violence when local authorities did not adequately perform their job.

Citing scare tactics by some social conservatives, Henderson said, "It is important to say explicitly that the bill will not trample the First Amendment; it will not criminalize speech; it will not infringe upon religious liberty."

"The bill is about simple justice. Passing it sends a signal to the entire country that no one ... should be the victim of hate crime violence."

Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington, D.C. bureau of the NAACP, said the 1998 murder of James Byrd, where he was chained to and dragged behind a car in a small town in Texas, "would not have been considered a hate crime" unless the attorney general "was willing to stretch existing hate crimes policies."

Bishop Carlton Pearson of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has voiced upset at some African American pastors' vocal opposition to the legislation. He believes they are not the real voice of the African American community.

"Right wing [white] fundamentalists are coordinating and motivating them to be vocal," he charged. "Their motivation is often either fear, or money, or both. It is not the love of God or people."

Amen. Call your senators and urge them to support the hate crimes (Matthew Shepherd) amendment.