The U.S. House of
Representatives passed an LGBT-inclusive
federal hate-crimes bill on Wednesday afternoon with a
249-175 vote. Democratic representative Jerrold Nadler
of New York, chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, applauded the
passage of the Matthew Shepard Act.
"The law routinely
looks to the motivation behind a criminal act and treats the
more heinous of them differently," Nadler said on the
House floor. "Manslaughter is different from premeditated
murder, which is different from a contract killing. We also
punish crimes differently if they are terrorist acts, defined
as violent acts that 'appear to be intended to intimidate
or coerce a civilian population.'"
Republican
representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said
that the idea of Matthew Shepard's murder
being called a hate crime is "a
hoax" while his mother, Judy Shepard, looked on
to the House floor from the gallery. Speaking of the slain
college student, whose parents have since become ardent voices
for the legislation, Foxx said, "we know that that young
man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't
because he was gay. This -- the bill was named for him, [the]
hate-crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that
continues to be used as an excuse for passing these
bills."
A Senate version of
the bill was introduced Tuesday. Joe Solmonese,
president of the Human Rights Campaign, anticipated the Senate
would vote on the legislation, now called the Local
Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, by the end of the
year.
"We're
confident that we'll make progress in the Senate as
well," Solmonese said. "We're in conversations
with Senator [Harry] Reid and other leaders in the Senate to
try to determine the most expeditious way to move the bill and
one that keeps that bill intact and gets it to the
president's desk."
President
Obama issued a statement Tuesday, putting his full
weight behind the measure: "I urge members on both sides
of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by
passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from
violent acts of intolerance -- legislation that will enhance
civil rights protections, while also protecting our freedom of
speech and association. I also urge the Senate to work with my
administration to finalize this bill and to take swift
action."
The bipartisan Senate
bill is being carried by Democrat Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts
and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine. Other cosponsors include
Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Republican Susan Collins of
Maine, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who switched his
affiliation Tuesday from Republican to Democrat.
Civil rights and faith
groups held a press conference call urging swift passage of the
bill with leaders from the Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights, American Association of People With Disabilities,
American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Campaign, National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National
Council of La Raza, and the Religious Action Center of Reform
Judaism.
Caroline Frederickson,
director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office, said
that discussion on the House floor Wednesday was sure to
include warnings that the bill would impinge on freedom of
speech and religious practices. She countered that since 2005
the bill has included specific provisions to protect basic
First Amendment rights.
"The bill
specifically blocks evidence of speech and associations that is
not specifically related to the crimes," she said, adding,
"This bill will have the strongest protection against the
misuse of a person's free speech that Congress has enacted
in the federal criminal code."
The Local Law
Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act enhances federal
involvement to combat hate crimes and authorizes the U.S.
Justice Department to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated
violence against a person based on actual or perceived race,
color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation,
gender identity, or disability.
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