Senate votes big expansion of federal hate crimes

Source: AP

WASHINGTON — The Senate has approved the most sweeping expansion of federal hate crimes protections since the original law was enacted after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The legislation broadens federal reach to protect those physically attacked because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or a disability. Current law is limited to crimes motivated by race, ethnicity or religion.

The Senate approved the measure on a voice vote immediately after voting 63-28 to overcome Republican-led opposition to considering the measure an amendment to a defense spending bill. Sixty votes were needed to clear that procedural hurdle.

The House in April passed a stand-alone hate crimes bill that is similar to the Senate legislation.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hmxKiiSIsM-k7nX2yECb7kGw1qhwD99FUMJG0

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The LGBT community is the closest they have ever been to being included in Federal legislation that has existed since the 60's.

Let's finally put this issue to rest and move forward.

"The Senate approved the measure on a voice vote immediately after voting 63-28 to overcome Republican-led opposition to considering the measure an amendment to a defense spending bill."

You edited your post so many times that each time I went to respond, I had to start my response all over again.

prevented any confusion, as would the author of the article writing a more clear sentence (had I been editing the article, that sentence would have been rewritten, and probably broken down into 2 - it is syntactically very complex, which makes extracting the meaning more difficult. In fact, without external context, the sentence's meaning would be unclear.)

like the House bill. That could be finished in an instant. Instead they're going to force the President to keep the F-22's or take the heat for vetoing gay rights legislation. And this isn't even DADT, which would have something to do with a defense bill.

crimes issue - because they know Obama has said he will veto a bill with F22 funding - even the air force has said they don't want to continue the F22 program.

So there's nothing to keep this from passing?

so as it is, the funding for the F-22s is still part of the bill. :(

Here's the story on that: http://www.kansascity.com/438/story/1326126.html

So they're going to keep playing games with this. And way too many people won't take the blinders off to see what's really going on.

Senators Carl Levin and John McCain have offered a bi-partisan amendment to remove the F-22 funding that is scheduled for a vote Monday, but insiders say the count is unclear.

If the amendment fails and President Obama vetoes the bill, it will be sent back to the Senate for a rewrite. A Democratic Senate aide said Senator Reid was optimistic, nonetheless, that hate crimes would ultimately make the final version of DOD authorization.

“This was a good vote,” said the aide. “Senator Reid is hopeful that we can keep this language in the final bill.”

David Smith, vice president of the Human Rights Campaign, also indicated that hate crimes stood a good chance of being signed into law despite the F-22 snag.

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid98991.asp

My interpretation, after following this all week, was the Levin-McCain amendment was scrapped right before the cloture vote on hate crimes, to gather more support from moderate Democrats and Republicans.

Should be interesting to see what happens to the F-22 amendment either in committee or if it gets sent back to the Senate for a re-write. I'm confident, though, that the hate crimes legislation will remain intact.

unnecessary. The hate crimes amendment is meaningless as long as the F22 funding is still in there, and the senators know that(and I believe are playing games right now with that and DADT) - I hope Obama holds to his promise to veto F22 funding. Do we really have money to waste on this? That's money that could be funding health care reform.

:kick: (and rec'd, too)

Statement by Rea Carey, Executive Director
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund

"It’s long past time to send a clear and unequivocal message to America that hate violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people will no longer be tolerated. That so many LGBT people — or those perceived to be LGBT — have died or been injured over the years due to hate violence and bigotry is a moral outrage and painful scar on this nation. The good news is that our political leaders are on the brink of tackling this scourge forcefully and with conviction; this moment cannot come soon enough.

"Laws embody the values of our nation, and through this amendment the Senate is saying that America rejects and condemns hate violence against its people. The importance of this cannot be overstated, particularly in light of the toxic misinformation campaign that has been waged against the measure by right-wing forces who would rather see anti-LGBT crimes go unaddressed than have the words 'sexual orientation' or 'gender identity' appear alongside other protected classes in federal law.

"We thank Sen. Ted Kennedy for his leadership on this issue and Sens. Patrick Leahy, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe for their leadership on the amendment today. We also thank all Senate members who supported it."

http://thetaskforce.org/press/releases/pr_hate_crimes_071609

crimes amendment is attached to.

bill because of the F22 funding. The only thing they didn't mention is that the air force has said F-22 funding is unnecessary; it's really too bad they didn't specify that as well.

I know Snowe and Collins must have two of the five.