Obama signs Hate Crimes Law
President Obama keeps promise to sign an expanded Hate Crimes Law.
PROMISES, PROMISES: Obama Keeps Word on Hate Crime
From the Associated Press and the New York Times
President Obama signed a hate crimes bill into law on Wednesday, telling an audience at the White House that the provision would “strengthen the protections against crimes based on the color of your skin, the faith in your heart, or the place of your birth.”
The law expands the definition of violent federal hate crimes to those committed because of a victim’s sexual orientation. Under existing federal law, hate crimes are defined as those motivated by the victim’s race, color, religion or national origin.
''No one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hands of the person they love. No one in America should be forced to look over their shoulder because of who they are or because they live with a disability,'' Obama said, referring to Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., for whom the law is named.
Shepard was a gay Wyoming college student murdered in 1998; Byrd was a black man chained to a pickup truck by three white men and dragged to his death in east Texas that year.
