Tennessee Equality Project seeks to advance and protect the civil rights of our State’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons and their families in each Grand Division.
Showing posts with label Matthew Shepard Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matthew Shepard Act. Show all posts
When President Obama signs the hate crimes law on Wednesday, an important six-year journey will be complete. What won't be fulfilled, of course, is the need for further legislation protecting the employment of GLBT people and recognizing our relationships. But the bill represents the transformation of our community from criminals to a class marked for protection from crime. Strictly speaking, the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity are netural since everyone has a sexual orientation and a gender identity, but the effect will be to recognize GLBT people in federal law.
Only six years ago the Supreme Court handed down Lawrence v Texas, which overturned state sodomy laws. Many states had already undone their sodomy laws, but some had not. Without the Court's ruling, any of the states could theoretically reinstate them. The Lawrence decision meant that same-sex relationships, though not fully recognized, could not be criminalized. And now in the space of just six years from Lawrence, crimes committed against us because of our sexual orientation and gender identity will receive greater scrutiny and more resources will be available to solve them.
Transgender people will count. Literally. Currently the FBI tracks hate violence based on sexual orientation, but not acts based on gender identity. Now both kinds of bias-motivated violence will be tracked, investigated, and prosecuted. That is good news for Tennessee where prosecutions are rare and our state hate crimes law does not include gender identity.
Progress can never be rapid enough for a group that faces discrimination and violence. We have much further to go to realize the promise of equal protection. But the movement from Lawrence to the hate crimes law is a breath-taking development and worthy of celebration.
Tonight the U.S. Senate passed Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-Vermont) amendment to the defense bill. The amendment is popularly known as the Matthew Shepard Act which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate crimes protections as well as provide resources to local law enforcement agencies to deal with hate crimes.
The debate focused on two lines of opposition. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) attempted to argue that there was no need for the bill since states are handling hate crimes adequately. He proposed an amendment that would make provision to study what the states are doing. Laws differ from state to state. Only about half include sexual orientation and very few include gender identity. Another problem with the Hatch proposal is that many states in the form of county sheriffs and local district attorneys are not availing themselves of state hate crimes laws. Can anyone name a recent example of a DA in Tennessee going for the penalty enhancement in a case in which sexual orientation was motivation for the crime? Finally, the federal bill provides resources to local law enforcement agencies to deal with this class of crime.
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) was more successful in his line of objection. He expressed concern that Matthew Shepard would have a chilling effect on speech and the expression of religion. His amendment to the amendment clarifying the scope of these freedoms and their limitations with respect to hate crimes passed by a large margin. But by passing his amendment he gives conservatives fewer reasons to oppose Shepard.
There's still much work to do before the bill gets to the president's desk for signature, but it's on the right track.
A hat tip to Nancy VanReece for alerting us to the fact that Congressman Jim Cooper has signed on as a cosponsor to the federal hate crimes bill, H.R. 1913. He joins Congressman Steve Cohen on the bill. There are now 120 cosponsors. The number of supportive lawmakers and a president willing to sign the bill bode well for its passage. Anything can happen in the Senate, of course, but today's news about Sen. Specter should make passage even easier.
Wednesday marks a watershed for hate crimes policy at the federal and state level:
Tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA), also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. The bill would give the Justice Department the power to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence by providing the department with jurisdiction over crimes of violence where the victim is chosen because of the person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
Tennessee's own Congressman Steve Cohen is a member of the House Judiciary Committee that will work on the bill. The Human Rights Campaign has put together an action alert on the federal bill and this video featuring Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, whose murder ten years ago helped change the debate about hate crimes in America:
As we noted in a previous post, the Tennessee House Criminal Practice Subcommittee will consider HB 0335, which would add gender identity and expression to Tennessee's hate crimes statute as sentencing enhancement factors, as advocated by the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition. Click here for TEP's action alert on the bill to contact the members of this subcommittee.
Whatever happens with the federal and the state bills this week, the movement to pass these protections and to provide resources for tackling hate crimes is growing. The violence that besets the GLBT community, once so casually dismissed without having to require serious justification, is out in the open. Its justifying discourses are in shambles. Now all that's left is to fill the space with sound policy. I hope 2009 is the year that happens.
There is a general consensus in the GLBT community that hate crimes laws should include sexual orientation and gender identity. That doesn't mean everyone within the community agrees and it certainly doesn't mean everyone else agrees.
Here are the opportunities before us. First, in Tennessee, HB 0335/SB 0253 was introduced in the General Assembly this year. It would add gender identity as a sentencing enhancement factor; sexual orientation is already covered under Tennessee law. There is no fiscal note on the bill, which gets rid of one opposing argument right off the bat. Second, we have hopes that the Matthew Shepard Act or the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act will be passed at the federal level later this year. The bill would...
remove the current prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally-protected activity, like voting or going to school;
give federal authorities greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue;
provide $10 million in funding for 2008 and 2009 to help State and local agencies pay for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes;
require the FBI to track statistics on hate crimes against transgender people (statistics for the other groups are already tracked)
And it would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the classes of persons who can be categorized as the victim of a hate crime.
So what are the objections?
First, some religious right groups have been spreading the myth/lie/falsehood/ruse that hate crimes laws regulate speech. It's not true. Neither the state nor the federal bill deals with speech. You can still preach against the GLBTs from the pulpit if you choose. As Congressman Steve Cohen puts the matter eloquently:
Second, we often hear opponents, even within the GLBT community, argue that the hate part doesn't make any difference. A murder is a murder, after all. Right? Not true. First, of all, many hate crimes don't result in death. They can range from vandalism to assault to murder. The hate factor does matter because legal proceedings do consider motive and it is basic to criminal law to look at different categories of crime--viz., assault vs. aggravated assault. How many words do we have for a crime when someone is killed? Manslaughter, homicide, first-degree murder, etc. If there is a pattern of crimes that share a common motivation and target something specific about a group of victims, isn't it in society's interest to track them and treat them differently? Doesn't that kind of focus help us solve and prevent those crimes more effectively? What you're basically saying, if you oppose hate crimes legislation, is that you don't give a damn if particular kinds of victims are protected and receive justice.
Third, there's a new argument against hate crimes legislation that I'm starting to see coming from the left. Some are arguing (and get ready to cringe when you read the phrase) that hate crimes laws prop up the "prison industrial complex." In other words, hate crimes laws would simply put more disadvantaged people in our mismanaged and oppressive prisons. These same critics would argue that hate crimes laws don't work any way.
After getting past the eye-rolling about the phrase "prison industrial complex," the response to this line of argument is clear. Society has the right and responsibility to protect itself from violent offenders. The fact that our prisons are mismanaged and oppressive is such a broad argument that it would seem to justify not putting anyone else in them. If someone is convicted of a dangerous crime, he or she needs to be locked up. The argument also ignores the fact that most of the victims themselves are from racial, ethnic, and religious minority communities. Even in the GLBT community, the victims are often African-American. Consider the two transgender women in Memphis who were murdered and the third who was shot in the face last year--all African-American. And according to the Department of Justice, many of these crimes are committed for the "thrill" of it. Class isn't necessarily the dominant factor in sorting out the perpetrators. In fact, the average perpetrator of anti-gay violence can be your typical college student who may not be particularly disadvantaged at all, according to some studies. In this young adult age group, the motivations are described as self-defense against perceived sexual propositions, an anti-gay ideology, peer influence, and (in agreement with the Department of Justice) thrill seeking.
So are hate crimes laws effective? Standing alone, they will not prevent hate crimes. Education is necessary, too. If there are not aggressive prosecutions, then they won't work. We have not had aggressive prosecutions in Tennessee with respect to anti-gay hate crimes. In fact, we have not had aggressive investigations of hate crimes in Tennessee. That's precisely why the Matthew Shepard Act would make a difference. It would provide resources for investigating hate crimes and it would allow the federal government to step in if local authorities chose not to pursue acts of hate.
In rural Tennessee, it is often difficult for elected district attorneys and elected sheriffs to puruse a matter as a hate crime. That's not to say they don't do their jobs in taking on acts of vandalism, murder, etc. But it is up to the D.A. to go after the sentencing enhancement. It almost never happens. And there are no extra resources for county sheriffs and city police departments to conduct adequate investigations of the hate angle. So to argue that hate crimes laws don't work is speculative at best since they really haven't had a chance to be tested.
Based on other kinds of hate crimes, like cross burnings, that are less common today, I think we can make an educated guess that adding sexual orientation and gender identity to hate crimes, would have a positive effect. In other eras, the practice was fairly common. Twenty occurred between October 2005 and April 2007, according to the FBI. Because race is covered by federal hate crimes laws, here's what the FBI says it can offer in invesigating these acts of hate:
What do we bring to the table? Two things primarily.
First, our full suite of investigative and intelligence capabilities. For example:
We can use our intelligence to provide a broader understanding of any involved organized hate groups; we may also have or be able to develop informants or other sources of information in these groups or in the area.
We can run undercover or surveillance operations and send in our evidence response teams to help secure and map crime scenes.
Second, the full force of federal civil rights statutes when warranted. In some cases, for example, states may not even have hate crime laws on the books.
If the GLBT community is the target of hate violence, doesn't it seem reasonable to extend these resources to our community as well?
This evening Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition President Marisa Richmond and I observed the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death by making the trip to Chattanooga for the annual hate crimes vigil, which is one of the opening events of Tennessee Valley Pride. Several of the recent Tennessee hate crimes involving members of Tennessee's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community were remembered. Speakers urged Chattanoogans to do more to persuade Tennessee's congressional delegation, especially former Chattanooga Mayor and current Senator Bob Corker, to be more supportive of the Matthew Shepard Act. At the end of the event, the crowd drew close to share their hopes for working together to make all citizens of our State safe from bias-motivated violence and finally extinguished their candles.
The vigil was an important step in breaking the isolation that members of our community often feel outside Memphis, Knoxville, and Nashville. This isolation is a major obstacle to greater advocacy for equality.
Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, the Wyoming college student who was brutally attacked and left for dead hanging on a fence in the cold night air. Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day that celebrates the often difficult decision that people make to be honest about their sexual orientation.
Events around Tennessee will provide an opportunity for the GLBT community to reflect on both. Today I'll be speaking to a group of Vanderbilt medical students and on Sunday I'll be in Chattanooga for their annual hate crimes vigil that kicks off a week of activities for Tennessee Valley Pride.
The pairing of the two reminds us of the risks to our lives. We've seen a rash of hate violence already this year in Tennessee. Given the danger we face, I'm amazed and humbled that our movement makes progress. And I'm amazed and frustrated that there is not a national consensus that violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity should be covered in federal hate crimes laws.
Coming home from Kentucky last weekend, I heard a radio preacher fulminating against the Matthew Shepard Act that would add these two categories to federal law. He violated a commandment in the process. He repeated the common fear tactic that hate crimes laws would restrict the freedom of the pulpit to denounce the "abomination of homosexuality." The proposed law criminalizes behavior and it adds law enforcement resources to deal with the problem. Pure and simple. It does not restrict speech or religion.
At one level, I'm comforted that all our opponents have left are lies as their last defense against a just law. On the other hand, I'm angry that these lies generate enough calls and emails to Tennessee's U.S. Senators to prevent them from voting for the Matthew Shepard Act.
So Lamar, Bob, and Bob, I hope 2008 is the last year in U.S. history that federal law overlooks the violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Whoever among you enters the Senate chambers next year, have the courage to defend all your fellow Tennesseans. In most places in Tennessee, local law enforcement are either uninformed or unwilling to devote the resources to investigating and solving hate crimes in our state. We need the involvement of the FBI if we're going to put a dent in the problem. That won't happen unless you and your colleagues support the Matthew Shepard Act.
In a conference call Monday, an official with the Obama campaign’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Steering Committee noted that Obama is a strong supporter of the Matthew Shepard National Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act while McCain opposes the legislation.
“We feel it’s important to point out the stark contrast between Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain on this issue,” said Matt Nosanchuk, an official with the Obama LGBT Steering and Policy Committee.
The challenge came as a result of the sharp increase in anti-GLBT hate violence this year:
[Sharon] Stapel [of the New York City Anti-Violence Project] and Avy Skolnik, who heads the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, which is affiliated with the New York group, said recent incidents of anti-gay and anti-trans violence have occurred in at least seven states, including New York, Colorado, Texas, Tennessee and Ohio.
The piece is a welcome effort at showcasing the issue of hate crimes in the campaign. Unfortunately, while the reporter sought comment from the McCain campaign, the story went to press before there was a response. I think a piece like this could have waited a couple of days to provide opportunity for McCain to weigh in.
Since the original post, Senator Alexander has responded via Lee Pitts, his press secretary. This statement is to be attributed to Mr. Pitts:
“Senator Alexander was deeply saddened by last Sunday’s events. His thoughts and prayers are with the families, children and community affected by this tragedy."
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Kenneth Eaton has responded to my questions about the attack on the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and the Matthew Shepard Act. The last part of his answer may be similar to the feelings of Bob Tuke, whose campaign has not returned my email asking him if he has a statement. But, like I said, the campaign hasn't returned my email, so it's impossible to know. Here is Mr. Eaton's email response in full, which he gave permission to be posted:
I do support the Matthew Shepard Act.
No matter your ideology, what happened in Knoxville is disheartening, and inexplicable. This is such a tragedy, our hearts and prayers go out to everyone involved, but my campaign is not going to use it for political gain.
"This type of profound violence is the exact thing that police officers are supposed to protect people from," said HRC President Joe Solmonese. "HRC is calling for a full criminal investigation and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law."
"This reprehensible attack upon a person who was not resisting simply because of her gender expression has no place in a civilized society," said Dr. Marisa Richmond, President of TTPC. "The brutality of this attack must be dealt with by the judicial system. If Shelby County District Attorney, William Gibbons, who is reportedly considering a run for Governor in 2010, will not prosecute the officers involved for this obvious hate crime, then he should be removed from office for dereliction of duty," continues Richmond.
Out & About Newspaper has run its own story. In that piece, the Tennessee Equality Project said that our Shelby County Committee has reached out to local law enforcement to find ways of preventing this kind of incident from happening again, even as we condemn the attack. In the interview, we also called on Senators Alexander and Corker to support the Matthew Shepard Act, which would add gender identity and sexual orientation to federal hate crimes protections.
WSMV is reporting on racist words painted on an electric box in a Franklin neighborhood named after KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. The words are likely directed at the two African American families who live in the neighborhood.
"Oh, it's so hurtful; so hurtful. I cannot even let my kids go outside due to this. They cannot go outside until something is done," said Audrey Burks.
People in the neighborhood feel powerless to do anything about it and the police to have few options.
"I know at this point, there's really nothing you can do except to make it known to the rest of the community that this is something that's not acceptable," [the Rev. Anthony] Hendricks said. Police in Franklin took a report on the graffiti but said they believe it's an isolated incident. Police have not received any similar reports.
That's probably because they don't have adequate resources to deal with hate crimes. But if Congress had passed and the President had signed the Matthew Shepard Act last year, then they might be able to access the resources they need. On this blog, we've mostly talked about Shepard in terms of its addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to hate crimes laws. And most of the opposition has focused on the fear of making thought a crime, which the Act doesn't do at all.
However, the reason local law enforcement agents and communities in Tennessee should get behind Shepard is that it would provide more resources to fight all hate crimes regardless of their classification, including crimes of racial bias. Not only would money be available but other valuable forms of assistance as well. Consider section 4 of the act:
(a) Assistance Other Than Financial Assistance-
(1) IN GENERAL- At the request of State, local, or Tribal law enforcement agency, the Attorney General may provide technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or any other form of assistance in the criminal investigation or prosecution of any crime that--
(A) constitutes a crime of violence;
(B) constitutes a felony under the State, local, or Tribal laws; and
(C) is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim, or is a violation of the State, local, or Tribal hate crime laws.
(2) PRIORITY- In providing assistance under paragraph (1), the Attorney General shall give priority to crimes committed by offenders who have committed crimes in more than one State and to rural jurisdictions that have difficulty covering the extraordinary expenses relating to the investigation or prosecution of the crime.
Notice the priority for rural jurisdictions. It's time to pass this legislation. Let's hope that Senators Alexander and Corker can find a way to get on board when it comes up again and let's hope that House and Senate Democrats can stop wrangling over attaching it to a defense bill.
Otherwise, we're going to be left with solutions like this:
The homeowners association is going to look into how to remove the paint.
