'Gay' crimes should be hate crimes

By: Julie Lord

Posted: 3/5/08

As the campaign season plows along, the public seems to have set aside that pesky question: "Are we ready?" Are we ready for a black president? Are we ready for a female president? These questions seem to have run their course, especially as both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are doing well on the campaign trail. People seem to be paying more attention to the issues.

And now, finally, we are beginning to see the candidates tackle an issue that has been largely avoided to this point: discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The prompt for discussions on this topic may stem from a recent tragedy in California in which a 15-year-old homosexual male was murdered at his junior high school by one of his male classmates: a classmate who, just days before the attack, received a valentine from the young boy.

Lawrence King, an 8th-grader who had recently been living in foster care, was openly gay - and openly ridiculed for it. Though he endured regular taunting and bullying, his classmates claim they never thought it would go that far. According to reports, his attacker entered the computer lab where Lawrence was working and shot him in the head. The media is calling the attack a hate crime.

Is Lawrence's murder a hate crime? Well, let's look at the facts. The boy had declared himself homosexual. He was bullied and teased mercilessly by some of his peers. He gave another boy a valentine - that same boy shot Lawrence in the head. By all accounts, intolerance of Lawrence's homosexuality does appear to be the cause of his murder.

Federally speaking, however, Lawrence's murder is not officially a hate crime. That is because the Matthew Shepard Act - legislation that would make brutality motivated by a victim's gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity or disability a federally punishable act - has never been enacted. Though it has been a decade since the landmark case for which the legislation was named, this bill has stalled out in Congress, never so much as gracing our president's desk.

President George W. Bush has said he will veto the bill if it ever gets to him. Throughout both of his terms in office, Bush has shown us his ignorance knows no bounds, and this is especially true in the case of homosexual rights. From the proposed constitutional amendment "protecting marriage" between a man and a woman to refusing to acknowledge violence based on sexual orientation as a hate crime, this man has shown us again and again he has no tolerance for people who are different from him.

As a society, are we really that threatened by homosexuality? Are we going to look the other way when young people are beaten and killed just for being who they are? Sexual orientation is one of the last great prejudices in our country - a prejudice that has been repeatedly supported by our own government.

Presidential candidates are finally beginning to discuss this issue. I want to urge everyone to start paying attention to what these candidates have to say about the recent violence in California; their opinions on this matter might give us good insight into how they view the citizens of this country.

When hatred of a group of people begets violence or other criminal action, it becomes a hate crime. It does not matter if the crime is based on race, religion, sexual identity, disability, age or gender: Hate is hate. If our government can't protect us from this form of terrorism, who can?

As young voters and American citizens, we can be the generation to eliminate this prejudice. We can talk openly about these issues. This is not about your personal sexual orientation: This issue is about refusing to stand for discrimination of any kind.

It has been said by many - including one of our current presidential candidates - those who stand for nothing will fall for anything. We have been falling for the Bush administration's unique brand of ignorance and discrimination for far too long. It would seem we are ready for a change. Maybe we should start asking a new question: In this upcoming election, what are we standing for?