Hate Crimes Provisions Stripped From Defense Bill, Dooming Passage This Year

The Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act will not pass Congress this year. The bill which was strongly opposed by many Christian conservatives extends hate crimes protection to gays and lesbians (as well as to women and the disabled). (See prior posting.) Today the New York Times and the Washington Post report on the complicated maneuverings that doomed the bill. The hate crimes measure had passed the House, and then passed the Senate as an addition to the 2008 defense authorization bill. A number of Democrats in the House, however, were refusing to vote for the defense bill because it includes no timeline for troop withdrawal from Iraq, and many House Republicans were opposed to attaching the hate crimes measure to the defense bill, since the President has threatened to veto the hate crimes amendments. (See prior posting.) Faced with the prospect of insufficient votes in the House, Democrats agreed in Conference yesterday to strip the hate crimes language from the defense bill. California Rep. Lynn Woolsey commented: "That is what happens when you put good things in bad bills."