according to rachel weiner of the huffington post-
President Obama signed major civil rights legislation on Wednesday, making it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. The new measure expands the the scope of a 1968 law that applies to people attacked because of their race, religion or national origin. The U.S. Justice Department will have expanded authority to prosecute such crimes when local authorities don't.
The provision, called the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is attached to a defense authorization bill. It is named after Matthew Shepard, a gay college student tortured and killed in 1998, and James Byrd Jr., a black man who was chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death the same year.
The measure expands current hate crimes law to include violence based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. To assure its passage after years of frustrated efforts, Democratic supporters attached the measure to the must-pass defense policy bill over the steep objections of many Republicans.
The measure was a priority of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., that had been on the congressional agenda for a decade. During the signing ceremony, Obama acknowledged Shepard's mom, Judy, and remembered that he had told her this day would come. He also gave a nod to Kennedy's family. Going forward, Obama promised, people will be protected from violence based on "what they look like, who they love, how they pray or why they are."
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but according to queerty-
Just because the feds can now join hate crimes investigations, is the White House going to start instructing its minions to jump into the fray? LOLZ, yo! Not even the Human Rights Campaign, which has been pushing for this law, thinks so. Says the org's lobbyist David Stacy: "Are there going to be a huge number of prosecutions by the federal government, by the Justice Department, under this statute? No." (Worth remembering: Once upon a time, HRC supported ENDA even though it didn't include trans-protections.)
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whether this law changes allot or not much at all will be a matter of time, but the acknowledgment and inclusion of gays, lesbians bi's & transseuaxls into federal legal protections is history making, and antebellum is proud to bear witness.
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