Archive for May, 2007
Expanding Hate Crime Legislation…Or Not
May 4th, 2007 • 2 comments Transgender
The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to extend hate-crime protection to people who are victimized because of their sexuality. But the most immediate effect may be to set up another veto showdown between Democrats and President Bush.
By 237 to 180, the House voted to cover crimes spurred by a victim’s “gender, sexual orientation, gender identity” or disability under the hate-crime designation, which currently applies to people who are attacked because of their race, religion, color or national origin.
To be honest with you, I didn’t think I needed to read any further than that, but I knew that it wasn’t going to be that easy, there had to be a catch. I was right.
Companion legislation is moving through the Senate. But even assuming that a bill emerges from the full Congress, it will face a veto by President Bush on the grounds that it is “unnecessary and constitutionally questionable,” the White House said. The vote to approve the bill did not come close to the two-thirds needed to override a veto.
Wait a second…since when is the government protecting it’s citizens “unnecessary and constitutionally questionable?” Is it really that it’s constitutionally questionable, or is it more the fact that President Bush’s religious morals are leading the way on this issue?
Debate over the legislation has been spirited, and while some of it has addressed whether the bill is necessary, the arguments in the House chamber and beyond have been colored by issues of conscience and personal morality.
Why we need hate crime legislation
The current hate crime bill doesn’t protect transsexual or transgender persons and it only covers people while they are participating in a federal act, such as voting. The bill recently passed by the house “would make it easier for federal authorities to take part in hate-crime investigations if local investigators are unable or unwilling to pursue them.”
How is not expanding hate crime legislation wrong? Shouldn’t we do everything in our power to protect people? Even people who identify as trans? How could it hurt?
Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, called the bill “unnecessary and bad public policy.” While he finds racism and sexism “abhorrent,” Mr. Pence said, the bill’s language is so broad that it could encroach on free speech.
Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the minority leader, said the bill made no sense: “We’re going to put into place a federal law that says that not only will we punish you for the crime that you actually commit, the physical crime that you commit, but we’re also going to charge you with a crime if we think that you were thinking bad things about this person before you committed the crime.”
People are perfectly free to say whatever the hell they want. There’s an amendment in the Constitution that protects that right. All this bill is trying to do is protect people from violent acts, and if needed, to classify violent acts against trans people as a hate-crimes.