President Obama is joined by members of the Shepard and Byrd families. Image courtesy of lawdork.net

President Obama signed legislation today making it a federal hate crime to assault anyone based on gender, gender identification, disability, or sexual orientation.

This new bill, called “The Matthew Shepard & James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act”, is named after Matthew Shepard, a gay student beaten and left to die in Laramie, WY  in 1998 and James Byrd, Jr., a black man tied up behind a pickup truck and dragged to his death that same year.

The bill expands on the 1969 United States federal hate crime law, which defines a hate crime as assault based on race, natural origin, or religion.

“When Dennis and I started calling 10 years ago for federal action to prevent and properly prosecute hate crimes against gay, lesbian and transgendered Americans, we never imagined it would take this long,” said Judy Shepard, Matthew’s mother and the president of the Matthew Shepard Foundation Board of Directors (via The Huffington Post)

According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the bill mandates that the FBI track statistics on crimes against transgender people (all other mentioned groups are already tracked).  This bill is also the first federal bill that specifically protects transgender people.

The bill also provides $10 million to fund investigations of hate crimes and gives federal investigators greater ability to investigate hate crimes.

Though many are ecstatic about the new law, not all are pleased.  There was a lot of Republican opposition, including some from senators like Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), who, among other senators, thinks that the bill will not protect people equally.  Some argue that the bill will encroach first amendment rights and “will be a step closer to the prosecution of thought crimes“. 

Some oppose it because they want to reserve their God-given right to bash (be it verbally or physically) gay people at will.  James Dobson, founder of the conservative lobbyist group Focus on the Family, says that the bill will “muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality.” (According to the AP)

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