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The Federal Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (H.R. 1913) passed the U.S. House on April 29, 2009 by a vote of 249 to 175. The bill expands 1969 federal hate crime laws to include sexual orientation, gender expression or identity and disability. Previous hate crime laws gave the Justice Department authority to prosecute crimes motivated only by race, color, national origin and religion.

Race-based hate crimes leading up to the civil rights movement prompted federal legislation to help deter and prevent such acts. However, these law enforcement "definitions" of what makes a crime a hate crime have not been expanded since 1968. The need for the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in hate crime legislation has become more apparent given the continual increase in LGBT-biased violence.

Including sexual orientation and gender expression into federal hate crime legislation would allow the Justice Department to assist with the investigation of state and local hate based offenses. Federal assistance alleviates overburdened and under funded local law enforcement officials, better enabling them to solve crimes based on sexual orientation and gender expression violence.

While all crimes are an affront to society, offenses rooted in animus toward a victim's real or perceived characteristics are especially pernicious. The fear of crime becomes an extra burden for members of these groups, who can feel that they are being hunted.  That is why it is imperative to bring perpetrators to justice, and for leaders and citizens to make clear that violence motivated by hate will not be tolerated.

It is time for the US Senate to step up to the plate and follow through on important legislation tailored to protect LGBT American citizens.  

http://www.change.org/actions/view/stop_hate_crimes_against_lgbt_american_citizens

How can the US federal government randomly pick-and-choose how to hand out citizenship rights; and how can the federal government simply ignore mandates outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution?

In this essay, I posit that religious ideology, and specifically Christianity, has severely harmed the architecture of our government.  Christianity has been infused into every branch of our government despite the fact that our nation was founded on religious tolerance and acceptance of all people.  The Puritans fled from the Old Country, in part, to escape religious persecution; however, when they arrived to the New World, they brought the instruments of intolerance and hatred with them.  They brought the religion that had been used to persecuted them-- Christianity.

Over time, the Puritans built a colony, and later as Americans, they created a nation entrenched in Christianity.  Interestingly enough, however, the founding fathers of this nation chose not to embrace or endorse a state religion and omitted it from the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.  These informed and intelligent men remembered the religious evils which existed in Great Britain, and instead they sought to create a nation built upon equal, secular values and beliefs. 

Nevertheless, the tentacles of Christianity created over time an unequal institutionalized tier of citizenship.  Blacks were at the bottom.  Kidnapped from Africa, they were enslaved, bred like animals, and bought and sold like every day commodities.  Women were a notch above blacks, however, they, too, were simply considered the property of their husbands.  Just as blacks suffered many painful and unjust moments in the history of our nation, so too did women. 

In 1865 following the Civil War, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution granted blacks their freedom from slavery; and five years later,  the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, prohibited states from preventing people of color from voting: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. [And] The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” 

During the Jim Crow era, racial discrimination persisted and the disenfranchisement of blacks continued.  Despite the passage of the 15th Amendment, many states implemented unfair screening processes which denied blacks the right to vote.  Nevertheless, a century later, African-Americans finally secured the right to vote with the passage of The National Voting Act of 1965.

 In 1920, women were granted the right to vote with the passage of 19th Amendment to the US Constitution.  “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.  Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

The participation of the US federal government was crucial to creating and ultimately perpetuating equality for African-Americans and women. If individual states had been recruited to deal with racial and gender discrimination, there would be broad and staggering inequalities for African-Americans and women to this day.  Thankfully, our federal government did the right thing by taking control and correcting inequalities tolerated for far too long. 

The struggle of gay Americans  for equal rights is really no different than the struggles of  blacks or women.  Once again, he US federal government will have to step in and strip away the last remnants of apartheid in our nation.  The federal government will need to return to the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence for unbiased insight and remedy the injustices which have been supported, in part, by discriminatory Christian practices and beliefs.  The federal government cannot stand by idly and do nothing.  All Americans regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation should be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

I often wonder what some Americans will do when they wake up from their cognitively impaired,  heartless slumber, and realize how they have, actively or in silence, carried out, or tolerated, the many heinous and irrevocable injustices perpetrated on gay Americans….and often times in the name of their own God.  Will God-fearing Americans feel the shameful anguish of their action, or inaction, to the suffering of God’s gay children?  Will their experience be similar to the Germans who have had to live with their monstrous fingerprint on the history of the Jewish people?

It really amazes me how some individuals rationalize hatred and intolerance for certain groups of people.  To advance and legitimatize absurdities, many invoke the will of God to strengthen their argument, and to frighten others into accepting and adopting a code of morality which segregates, harms and disenfranchises other fellow Americans. Why do we do this?  Why do we refuse to learn from our mistakes?  Clearly, the mantra of our history teachers has fallen on deaf ears.