President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law today. It becomes effective immediately, making it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. The U.S. Justice Department will have expanded authority to prosecute such crimes when local authorities don't or won't. It will provide resources and training to local authorities in order to deal with these hate crimes. It will also direct the FBI to start identifying and tracking crimes committed against transgender people - the first measure ever enacted by the US government to protect transgender individuals.
President Obama remarked:
"After more than a decade of opposition and delay, we've passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray, or who they are"
"As a nation we've come far on the journey towards a more perfect union. And today, we've taken another step forward."
Some of you may poo-poo the signifigance of this bill, or criticize it as being an attachment to a defense appropriation bill, but be aware that it took over a decade for this thing to pass (its main proponent being the late Sen. Kennedy), and even in the final stages of passage, conservatives in Congress tried hard to kill it. And be aware that even though many of us may live in communities where hate crimes may seem unlikely, there are also many of us who are in places where there is real risk to life and limb to be known or suspected as being gay. And hateful lunatics are everywhere, whether you live in San Francisco or Laramie.
I'll link to a commentary by the President of the Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, on the importance of this occasion and the need to keep working harder for equality and civil rights:
"We Have Work To Do"
I'm sorry for the brevity of this diary .. but I thought that something should be posted here to recognize the importance of this as a step towards true civil rights for all. Even if this particular civil right is simply the right to not get killed or beaten up.
UPDATE: I apologize for not seeing this better diary on this topic posted earlier today. By all means, please read that diary and make sure it gets to the Recommended list.
Pictures, thanks to Scarce's comments to this diary: