The Senate has finally passed its anti-gay hate crime bill and President Obama will certainly sign it, no doubt to much fanfare. In the words of Human Rights Campaign's Joe Solmonese, it'll be "our nation's first major piece of civil rights legislation" for LGBT Americans. And at this seemingly historic moment, the burning question for people who think gay folks should to be treated like full citizens ought to be this: So what?
I wrote my first story about the Senateβs anti-gay hate crime bill more than a decade ago. What struck me most then holds true today: Itβs a nothing bill. All these years of lobbying and cajoling (and donating to) the Democrats, and this is the best they can do for gay civil rights? A tough-on-crime law that adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of things itβs really, really illegal to attack somebody over? At best, the bill scores the symbolic victory of the Senate acknowledging gay people as something more than a threat to straight marriages. At worst, it puts another club in the hands of a broken criminal justice system that will use it, as always, to beat up on young black men.
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Hate crimes are not a criminal justice problem. Cops and courts have their place, but they arenβt a panacea. We like to think if we just βget toughβ on social problems we donβt want to meaningfully address, itβll go away. But that hasnβt worked for drugs, it hasnβt worked for teen pregnancy or STDs, and itβs not gonna work for hate, of gay people or anybody else. Fixing those things takes a lot more workβwork we donβt want to do.
The Senateβs bill (passed, fittingly, as an attachment to the conference report outlining the Pentagonβs budget) broadens the definition of the existing federal hate crime law to include disability, sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. (Race, color, religion and national origin are already in there.) It also makes it a federal crime to attack military personnel because of their job.
Supporters named the measure after Matthew Shepard, the young Wyoming man whoβs brutal murder caught the nation off guard back in 1998. As me and other Root writers have noted, an uncounted number of black young people have since been tortured, killed and driven to suicide for being queer; not to mention the grisly violence transgender people in urban communities face routinely. Those crimes donβt make national headlinesβeven within the gay communityβand the victims thus donβt qualify as hate-crime poster children. Which is the first sign that thereβs not much honest about the discussion.
If the Senate and gay rights advocates alike want to actually deal with hate, then letβs do so. Letβs support real conversations in schools about sexuality and fund gay-straight alliance clubs, so they exist not just in tony neighborhoods but in the poor communities where hate crimes happen. Spare us the lobbying budget for a hate crime bill and instead fund gay community centers and outreach programs in those same poor neighborhoods. In sum, letβs actually engage the hate in question, not just make more crimes for prosecutors to tally.
βKAI WRIGHT
Straight From
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