President Obama today signed into law a provision on a defense authorization bill that would make it a federal offense to assault or murder someone based on their sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity.
It’s about time.
It’s bad enough for one person to harm another person. What’s even worse is when someone is harmed or even killed because of the color of their skin, their race, or their sexual orientation. Not only is it a crime against the person who is attacked, but it sends an intimidating message to the people who are just like the attack victim.
The bill was inspired by what happened to Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student that was horrifically tortured and left for dead by two men simply because Shepard was gay. When he was discovered strapped to a fence 18 hours after the attack, the person who found Shepard didn’t even know he was a person. His body was so severely beaten and disfigured, he looked to be a scarecrow.
Matthew Shepard was in a severe coma and never woke up. He died from his injuries a week later.
I cannot imagine what Matthew Shepard went though. I also cannot imagine the terror other gay men felt when the news of Matthew Shepard’s murder became public. Two man murdered Matthew Shepard because they wanted to kill someone who was gay. If it wasn’t Shepard, it might have been some other random gay man.
People shouldn’t have to live under the fear of physical harm or even death because of their race, their nationality, their religion, their sex, or even their sexual orientation. With this law, maybe now it will be easier for people to do just that.
Patty from Quartz Hill
/ October 28, 2009Amen. Well said.
Jim
/ October 31, 2009The problem I see with your reasoning in the paragraph is that criminals don’t consider the consequences when committing a crime. If a person hates a person enough to attack them for being gay, that they will be punished more harshly because the victim was attacked for being gay won’t come into consideration. Not to mention I think this law serves to further the “gay people are different from the rest of us, thats why we can’t let them marry” argument.
On the other hand anyone attacking someone for their sexual orientation deserves a swift, harsh punishment.
Bentcorner
/ October 31, 2009The way I look at it, when a person attacks another person because they are gay, the victim is not only the person being attacked, but also every other person who happens to also be gay. We have too many laws in our country where the crime doesn’t have a victim. For example, the criminalization of drug use. With hate crimes, it’s the complete opposite; the number of victims is in comparison, infinite.
Adam
/ November 2, 2009This is retarded. A completely arbitrary law. Please explain to me…in detail…HOW on EARTH one can PROVE beyond a reasonable doubt that a specific crime was done because of a persons religion, sexual orientation, race, etc. This will only arbitrarily create harsher punishments for people who have committed a crime not even knowing that the person was gay or will just give harsher punishments only for the reason that a person is black or white. This creates more racial/sexual/gender divisions in society and i do agree with Jim that this separates everyone more and makes gays and races seem more different. I have no clue how this will actually be put to use except maybe for the next case similar to that of Shepard. I don’t think there has been a similar instance since then though so this just seems more harmful than helpful. The reasoning in this article is just too faulty. Sorry.
Adam
/ November 2, 2009P.S. I think they did a south park episode about this. Check it out.