Subscribe to Breaking NewsLowenstein: Hate Crimes bill to move in Senate this week
Judy Shepard, advocating for hate crimes legislation
An anonymous Democratic Party source told the Washington Blade that hate crimes legislation will likely go to a vote before Wednesday in the Senate. The legislation, which the House of Representatives passed earlier this year, will be attached to a larger tourism bill, according to the source:
Lawmakers are expected to pass the measure by amending S. 1023, or the Travel Promotion Act, said the source. The bill is geared toward establishing a national travel promotion program to communicate U.S. travel policies and to promote travel to the United States.
“The idea is that that will be an amendment to the tourism bill that’s going to be on the floor this week in the Senate, and we’re thinking that the vote will happen probably [Tuesday] or Wednesday,” said the source.
The hate crimes bill passed the House on April 29, 249-175, as a standalone measure. The legislation would allow the U.S. Justice Department to assist in the prosecution of hate crimes committed against LGBT people that result in death or serious injury.
I’m certainly thrilled this legislation is getting the chance to move forward. I think hate crimes legislation is an important protection that deserves to be law.
But we can’t allow this small victory to preempt the other elements of the LGBT agenda. We can’t allow our leaders– elected officials, appointed party leaders, or self-selected organizations– to celebrate this in leiu of advancing other priorities.
John Berry, the highest ranking gay official in the Obama administration, recently spoke to The Advocate about the DOMA brief debacle. He warned that while the Obama administration was looking forward to seeing progress on a number of issues, hate crimes included, they wouldn’t give a timeline:
We have four broad legislative goals that we want to accomplish and legislation is one of these things where you’ve got to move when the opportunity strikes, so I’m going to list them in an order but it’s not necessarily going to go one, two, three, four. Obviously, I think the first opportunity is hate crimes and we’re hopeful that we can get that passed this week. We’re going to try, but if not, we’re going to keep at it until we get it passed. The second one ENDA, we want to secure that passage of ENDA, and third is we want to repeal legislatively “don’t ask don’t tell,” and fourth, we want to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
Now, I’m not going to pledge — and nor is the president — that this is going to be done by some certain date. The pledge and the promise is that, this will be done before the sun sets on this administration – our goal is to have this entire agenda accomplished and enacted into law so that it is secure.
Berry’s comments are both promising and problematic. They’re promising, because they demonstrate that someone in the White House took notice of the anger felt by the LGBT community after the DOMA brief was released, and figured some response was in order. Conversely, they’re problematic because they demonstrate a distinct lack of urgency regarding our legislative priorities.
So when hate crimes passes this week, I’ll celebrate. But I won’t let the bill’s passage allow the pressure on the White House and our Democratic leadership to let up. We can’t let them throw us a bone and then renege on the rest of their promises.
I guess we need to be grateful for whatever crumb we get from this administration. By attaching this as an amendment Obama can avoid a Rose Garden signing ceremony that he might actually have to invite LGBT people to.
We probably wouldn’t need a Hate Crimes Bill, if the hateful right wing Christians were forced to recognize the separation of Church and State from birth. It sounds to simple, however as long as they think that in God we Trust only implies their God, which is a revengeful, hateful God, that has no pity and takes his orders from the pastors that translate his teachings to suit their own needs
I completely agree with Lowenstein. Keep up the pressure on the White House, and make him hear our voices of the people he continue to hurt with his reluctance and silence to our issues.
This is a little more information than we’ve been given before, and it shows something important: Obama isn’t quaking, but he knows he has to do something – and it’s because of the pressure we and our allies have put on him, the anger and frustration and passion that we’ve expressed.
Obama wants to pass his gay rights agenda with little fanfare so as not to alienate the old-style evangelicals, who are a slightly larger group than we are. That’s why lower-ranking officials delivered both of his recent statements on LGBT rights: so the media will be less likely to report it.
I think we should continue the same agitation that provoked this official to issue a tentative sequence of events. But I agree with Rick B that we’ve got to do better. We’ve got to force Obama’s hand – and the hands of Congressional Democrats, along with others in Congress who might support us.
This is FANTASTIC. I hope it passes this week. This passing will not make the democrates complacent about gay rights. In fact the opposite, I think this will fire up advocates to push for more. I will most definetely be celebrating.
I just hope obama signs it quickly if its passes by the senate this week.
John,
I’m with you. Hillary Clinton has done more for gay rights just using her authority in the State Department. It is so unbelievable how Obama was presented as the 2nd coming of Christ and people actually bought it!!
Of course, there was no way in hell we could have allowed Sarah Palin anywhere near the presidency. Obama and the Democratic Party know this and are taking advantage of the gay community at every turn. We need a nationally coordinated strategy to force the party to respond to us. Perhaps we need to make Obama a one-term president by staying at home in 2012. I actually would prefer a Republican who is upfront about his/her opposition to me as opposed to a Democrat who lies to me and stabs me in the back.
Shortly after the election, Obama made several references to activists regarding Civil Rights. Primarily, what he said was that he wants to support us, but there are other things which must take his attention first (aka the economy and our two wars). His message was that he wanted activists to force the governments hands by organizing. Without that, it would not be to his or our political advantage to force congressional votes. We have not organized to the level of forcing congress to act. When we have done so, then I will start to criticize the Obama administration for a lack of support. But not until then.
Coming from an Administration that demands that everything be done yesterday without discussion, debate, or amendment (e.g. auto bailout, socialized medicine, etc) this non-comittal “commitment” to have this all done before Obama leaves office is pretty telling. He has no intention of doing anything for the GLBT community. At best, he will claim credit for any changes promoted by others during his reign. Until then, we will get occaisional targeted speeches and press releases to pacify us.
Obama is just another lying politician. But he is a democrat so we will beleive his lies and make excuses for him when he doesn’t deliver. After all, He’s busy with things far more important that civil rights for a small minority, right?
Obviously, Obama isn’t making LGBT rights a priority, and at times it looks like his actions and inactions are actually harming gay and lesbian Americans. For example, Obama doesn’t need Congress to overturn Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he can do it himself by executive order, and he doesn’t have to support DOMA in court either, he can let the thing get overturned instead of standing behind it and talking about how he ultimately plans to weaken or overturn it later. Obama is a disappointment at best.
I’m proud of Hillary and the leadership she’s shown at State, but I can’t forget how her husband threw us under the bus with DADT and DOMA — and then advised Kerry to disavow gay rights for political advantage. If Barak turns out like Bill, we’re in trouble.
Well said Johannes, and we will celebrate the passage of a hate crimes bill. But passage of that bill alone will not secure Obama my vote in 2012. He, and his team needs to expend some effort to pass ENDA, and repeal DADT and DOMA before 2012. Otherwise he is at risk of me sitting out the next election. Change you can believe in…NOT YET!
Hillary has shown more leadership in changing policies at the State Department to be LGBT friendly, then all the appointed members the Obama Administration combined have done in the rest of the federal government.
Mark – yes, I will celebrate if and when hate crimes legislation passes. But I don’t want to see it give Obama a pass for not doing anything else for a couple of years. Passing hate crimes legislation is a political slam-dunk and requires little to no political capital. We need to keep the pressure on so that we see real movement with ALL of our “fierce advocate’s” campaign promises to us.
So we are being told that we might have to wait seven+ years for movement on DADT and DOMA? That is UNACCEPTABLE!
I understand that nobody likes to give timelines, because if a timeline is missed it could be seen as failure, even if the goal is achieved at some point not too far down the road. But the time to start acting on this is now, while there is momentum and Obama’s approval ratings are high.
Strategically, it makes sense to take a graduated approach and pass other LGBT legislation before attempting to repeal DOMA, which is the most controversial of these four goals, but that doesn’t mean that the groundwork for DOMA’s repeal shouldn’t be laid now (congress should introduce a repeal bill, Obama should start talking about gay families). Planning to pass one of these four legislative goals every two years is not going to work – after 2014, Obama will be a lame duck president and won’t have the political juice to get anything major done.
At least it wasn’t attached to the “Promoting tea drinking with visiting dignitaries” bill.
IF it passes AND the President signs it, can we at least celebrate for a week? I’m not aware of any other positive GLBT legislation that’s ever passed before so this will be a first. And that’s significant.
Why would celebrating the passage of a hate crimes bill short circuit the pursuit of the rest of our agenda by its advocates? I don’t see it happening. This is just the first, logical step and I think all sides pretty much know it.