Expanding Hate Crime Protection
Passage of a bill to include sexual orientation was overdue. Too bad it wasn’t a clean victory.
Congressional Democrats did a good thing when they expanded federal hate crime legislation to protect those attacked because of their sexual orientation or genderidentity, but they went about it the wrong way: They attached the measure to a must-pass defense appropriations bill.
The bill passed both the House and Senate despite staunch Republican opposition to the hate crimes expansion.
“The inclusion of the controversial language of the hate crimes legislation, which is unrelated to our national defense, is deeply troubling,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
Sessions’ complaint is valid, though somewhat hypocritical. Democrats rightly complained about the use of such tactics by Republicans in the past.
When Republicans had the majority, they would attach unpalatable measures to defense spending bills, then claim Democrats who voted against them didn’t support the troops.
As noble as their intentions may have been here, Democrats should have tried to pass the measure on its own, or at least as part of a bill that had some relation to the criminal justice system.
The effort to expand federal hate crimes legislation has long been opposed by Republicans for a series of specious reasons:
- Hate crimes protection should apply only to innate conditions such as race. Never mind that sexual orientation is an innate condition or that protection currently extends to voluntary classes such as religious affiliation.
- Extending hate crimes protection to sexual orientation could lead to prosecution of religious leaders who believe homosexuality is a sin. Never mind that hate crimes prosecutions only come into play in association with physical crimes such as assault or murder.
Some claim to have philosophical objections to hate crimes in general, but, oddly, few Republicans have attempted to repeal existing protections against crimes based on religion, race, gender or national origin.
The expansion, which will most certainly be signed into law by President Obama, is a good thing. It’s unfortunate Democrats used legislative shenanigans to accomplish it.
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