(Washington) The Senate has voted 75-21 to confirm Eric Holder as the first African-American attorney general.

Holder also is the only African-American currently in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet. He had strong bipartisan support in Monday’s vote, plus he has the approval of major LGBT groups.

Holder previously served in the Clinton administration. In 1997, Clinton appointed Holder to Deputy Attorney General.

In a 1999 appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder called for LGBT inclusion in federal hate crime law, noting that currently the law “provides no coverage whatsoever for violent hate crimes committed because of bias based on the victim’s sexual orientation, gender or disability, and these crimes pose a serious problem for our nation.”

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act was named for the 21-year-old college student who was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in Wyoming in October 1998. It would add sexual orientation to the list of categories covered under federal hate crime law.

The bill will be reintroduced in the next session of Congress and President-elect Obama has said that if it passes he will sign it.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, called Tuesday night’s confirmation vote “historic.” He noted that Holder’s confirmation hearing was held while American was celebrating the 80th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.

Leahy said the confirmation would take the nation up the path that King wanted, where people are judged by the content of their character.

A small group of Republicans said they opposed Holder. They argued he was hostile to gun control and not fully supportive of the war on terrorism.