U.S. House passes gay and transgender inclusive hate crimes bill
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a transgender inclusive hate crimes amendment yesterday, despite noise from gay critics who said that including the trans community would sabotage the bill's future. While a sexual orientation hate crimes bill has passed the Senate three times before and the House has held two procedural votes on hate crimes legislation, this is the first time an explicitly written transgender inclusive bill has been passed by the House or the Senate. That's the good news.
The bad news is the hate crimes bill was passed as part of the Children’s Safety Act, and parts of it are quite problematic. One provision in it requires that all states set up sex offender registries and in some states public lewdness is a sex offense and public lewdness laws are disproportionately and unfairly enforced against gay men in cruising areas. The Children’s Safety Act also calls for the creation of a national DNA database of anyone arrested or detained by a federal agency, presenting some rather serious civil rights issues.
The hate crimes bill was co-sponsored by Democrats Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank and Wisconsin Rep. Tammy Baldwin (pictured) and Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Michigan's John Conyers Jr. and it passed with a 223 to 199 vote.
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