EYES ON THE PRIZE: PART TWO, BOTTOM-UP
Despite ample time and occasion, since 1999, there are nineteen (19) states that have failed to update their laws to criminalize bias-motivated violence based on sexual orientation or to provide enhanced penalties for the same, covering seventy-seven million people, or about a quarter of the population.
Of these, only one state, Michigan, has statutory provision for collecting hate-crime data based on sexual orientation. The rest aren't looking, for whatever reasons. If that were not bad enough, there are a notable eleven states that make no express statutory provision for training their law enforcement personnel. This is particularly heinous for bias-motivated or hate crimes, in which self-reporting victims can face being re-victimized by the system.
This list of deadbeats includes nine of the thirteen states that had pre-2003 sodomy law statues, including Oklahoma, which had one directed at homosexuals only.
PROTECTING PROPERTY, NOT PEOPLE
Amazingly, fourteen (14) of these deadbeat states have provisions 'protecting' property against bias-motivated violence in some form or another. (Does that seem un-Christian to you?). The icing on that dubious cake is that all but one of the states with no hate crimes statues - nothing, nada - DO have statutes dealing with "assaulting property", to coin a phrase, in untoward ways.
ODDITIES
Oddities abound when comparing the criminal codes across states. (If ever there were an argument agianst "State's Rights" it would be the myriad criminal nonsense that the USA has produced, perhaps.) For instance, Arkansas (AR), with nothing except its property protection statute, stands in stark contrast to its Louisiana (LA) neighbor, which has a full set of hate crime provisions that includes sexual orientation.
POLITICAL ROADBLOCK
Fifteen (15) of the thirty-three (33) Senators - nearly half - that voted against the much delayed national hate crimes legislation came from these nineteen states.
'NASTY' STATES
I wanted to see if any states had taken time to update their hate crime statutes since 1999, but who had expressly left out 'sexual orientation.' This check is very hard to do, since few of the sources show the dates in which States enacted what protections they have Comparing the ADL's 1999 report to their 2006 report, showed many states had added vandalism to their lists, but I couldn't confirm this with my third source/listing, so it is possible that the change represented an update/correction of the ADL's incomplete 1999 list, rather than legislative activity. I've listed just three that *may* have enacted changes to their statutes, but did nothing at the same time for gays and lesbians. It's also more complex than most tables let on. Some states have express categories, but others do not.
source: ADL's 1999, 2006 State Hate Crime Provisions; HRC's State HC Law's, 2007; 2000 U.S. Census Bureau
SENATORS AGAINST THE GRAIN
Other States have been more active that these nineteen. However, their own Senators are not always among them.
In fact, twelve States had provisions for sexual orientation but their representatives in the Senate were voting a different agenda.
Most notably is Senator McCain, consistent voter against in the Senate, who comes from a State that has a full complement of hate crimes laws, now including sexual orientation. Another key contrast is with Kentucky and its Senator, McConnell.
The contrast couldn't be starker than it is for Kansas, New Hampshire (Sununu) and especially New Mexico (Domenici).
Thursday, July 26, 2007
State Hate Crime Provisions: The Deadbeats
