Report: Antigay hate crimes up

Anti-LGBT hate crimes, esp. those against people of color and in Puerto Rico, increased in 2009.

(Washington) Reports of hate crimes against gays increased sharply in 2008, according to new FBI data released Monday.

Overall, the number of reported hate crimes increased about 2 percent. These same figures show a nearly 11 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a nearly 9 percent increase …

OK senator proposes hate crime exception

An Oklahoma legislator proposed a bill to negate parts of the recently-passed hate crimes law.

Obama’s White House remarks on hate crimes

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT RECEPTION COMMEMORATING THE ENACTMENT OF THE MATTHEW SHEPARD AND JAMES BYRD, JR. HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT

East Room

5:45 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you so much, and welcome to the White House.

There are several people here that I want to just make mention …

PROMISES, PROMISES: Obama delivers on hate crimes

(Washington) For this accomplishment, President Barack Obama sought maximum publicity.

There was a bill signing at a wooden desk set up in the East Room, with the media invited, followed by a reception for joyous, champagne-sipping supporters and an address to them, again, from the East Room.

Obama was keeping a campaign …

Full story: Congress acts to extend hate crimes to cover gays

(Washington) The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968.

With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be …

House passes defense authorization report, including hate crimes

From an HRC press release:

(Washington) The U.S. House of Representatives passed the conference report for the FY 2010 Defense Authorization bill by a vote of 281 to 146, bringing critical hate crimes protections closer to becoming law than ever before.

Earlier this week, the House voted down a last-ditch effort to …

States with more Catholics more favor gay rights

Want to predict which state might move next to legalize same-sex marriage? You might count Catholics. The higher their percentage of the population, the more likely the state is to… support gay rights.

This counter-intuitive finding is brought to you with a tip of two hats — mine to Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics and his to Robbie Jones who led Silk to a new study soon by be published by two Columbia University political scientists.

Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips examined public support and resulting political policy on eight issues including marriage, housing, adoption and hate crimes.

The main thrust of the study was to examine whether there is “pro-gay bias in policy making” (the authors conclude no) or a tyranny of local majorities “in which anti-gay majorities trump minority rights” (the authors again say no).

See States with more Catholics more favor gay rights

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