As our country hurtles toward a presidential election defined by change, we fly by the tenth anniversary of a horrific crime that illustrates just how much, in one decade, that country has remained the same. On the night of Oct. 6, 1998, just outside of Laramie, Wyoming, two men brutally beat gay college student Matthew Shepard, tied him to a fence and left him to die. He was found alive 18 hours later, still tied to the fence and so bloodied and lifeless that he resembled a scarecrow. He died in the hospital six days later, on Oct. 12. Matthew’s friends and family would say that his sexuality was by no means the most important thing one could know about him, but, nonetheless, it was the most important motivation in the minds of Matthew’s killers on that night ten years ago.
If any deplorable act in this world is to be considered a hate crime, the murder of Matthew Shepard should be. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines a hate crime as “a criminal offense committed against a person, property or society, which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity/national origin.” These crimes, in effect, become more than just crimes against people, because to a large extent the perpetrator’s motivation lies not in the victim but rather in the victim’s identity.
Contrary to the FBI’s definition, however, current federal hate crime law grants protection only to victims of crimes based on race, color, religion or national origin. Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation or gender identity cannot be tried in a federal court. Therefore, the decision to enforce justice is left solely to the states.
Unfortunately, the states do not unanimously provide protection. Indeed, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 14 states fail to include sexual orientation and gender identity in existing hate crime penalty laws, and 5 states lack these laws completely (including Wyoming). Only 11 states and the District of Columbia include sexual orientation and gender identity protections in hate crime penalty laws.
Eleven in fifty does not give anyone in the LGBT community sufficient odds of finding legal protection from crimes of hate. Because state laws vary so widely, statistics are far from accurate, and far too often these crimes go unrecognized or ignored by local communities and police. Just one example of this negligence occurred in Washington in Aug. 2007, when, according to the Seattle-Post Intelligencer, 47-year-old Michael Wrenn was assaulted by a man who approached him on the street and asked if he was a “fag.” Mr. Wrenn answered “yes” and was subsequently beaten. The Seattle police did not report the incident as a hate or bias crime of any kind. Even worse, the officer on duty later told Michael Wrenn that being gay was “[his own] issue.”
Stories of biased treatment from government officials at all levels are by no means scarce in the LGBT community. When those who enforce the law harbor the same bias as those who break it, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people feel the weight of ignorance from all sides. In this environment, hate crime laws represent far more than an extension of “special rights.” On the contrary, prosecution at the federal level protects members of marginalized communities that desperately need that extra protection-often from the law itself.
That ten years have passed since Matthew Shepard’s murder and so little has changed at the federal level highlights our utter lack of progress on this issue. Some members of Congress have been trying (unsuccessfully) for the past ten years to pass a hate crime bill that would add gender, sexual orientation and gender identity to the current list of protected classes. The 2007 version of this bill was named the Matthew Shepard Act in hope that this would drum up more support. The bill passed in both houses last year but stalled in the final stages and was never signed into law.
Ultimately, hate crime legislation is a powerful step in the right direction toward a mature response to the kinds of atrocities that killed Matthew Shepard. But legislation alone will not solve the problem of violence toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. While we can and must hold our politicians accountable for their voting records (according to the Washington Post, Barack Obama voted for the Matthew Shepard Act, while John McCain did not cast a vote and has voted against similar legislation three times), this issue is so married to our personal biases that, at a certain point, we must look within.
Hatred does not arise from logical reasoning or a nation’s laws. It arises from intense emotion within us and manifests in gut reactions of disgust and fear. Each of us has felt hatred at some level. Against the other. Against ourselves. We know this. So, before we once again let the anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death silently pass us by, let’s acknowledge that hatred, and let’s start talking. Let’s start to create real change.