(New York City) The brutal slaying of an Ecuadorian immigrant viciously beaten by men who yelled anti-Hispanic and anti-gay slurs at him has renewed calls for the passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act.

Witnesses said they heard the men in the car shouting anti-gay and anti-Hispanic slurs at the brothers. The attackers jumped out of the car and smashed a beer bottle over Jose Sucuzhanay’s head, hit him in the head with an aluminum baseball bat and kicked him, police said. Romel Sucuzhanay was able to get away.

Neither brother is gay, but the perception that Jose Sucuzhanay was has fueled calls for passage of the Shepard Act early in the new Congress.

“We have learned the tragic lesson of history that words matter and indifference matters even more,” said Rep. Steve Israel at a news conference.  Israel was joined by NYS assemblyman Philip Ramos and Suffolk legislator Ricardo Montano.

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 passed the House in 2007 and the White House threatened to veto it. In an effort to get around a veto the Senate version was tied to the 2008 defense authorization bill. It passed, but then went to conference where it was stripped out.

President-elect Barrack Obama and his Attorney General-designate, Eric Holder, support passage of the Shepard Act, also known as the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

In 1997, Holder was appointed deputy attorney general by President Clinton. In 1999, Holder appeared before the House Judiciary Committee Holder calling 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 number of reported attacks against LGBT people across the country increased 24 percent in 2007 over 2006, and they were expected to jump in 2008 when the final figures are in, Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project said earlier this week.

In February, Lawrence King, a 15-year-old Los Angeles boy who endured harassment after telling classmates he was gay, was shot and killed by a classmate.

Other incidents include the discovery of Angie Zapata’s body in July in her apartment in Greeley, Colo. Zapata, 18, was a transgender woman. Police have charged a man with murder as a hate crime in her death.

In June, a surveillance tape was publicized showing Memphis, Tenn., police officers beating Duanna Johnson, a transgendered woman, and shouting slurs in a jail booking area; a public outcry erupted. Johnson was found fatally shot on a Memphis street in November.

Also in New York City, police arrested four teenagers on charges of assaulting a priest outside a shelter he ran for homeless transgender youths in July. Witnesses said the four teens had harassed and taunted residents with homophobic slurs and insults before the assault.