President Obama Signs the Hate Crimes Bill

This is great, we are including our "T" in the LGBT community and we are making steps.

This is a good day!

Obama Will Sign Matthew Shepard Bill on Wednesday... I hope

If everything goes right, President Obama will sign the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law on Hump day.

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Dan Savage: Hate Crimes bill Doesn't impact the lives of the LGBT community like Marriage

I kid you not, folks!

Dan said that the Hate Crimes law DOES NOT impact the lives of gays and lesbians like the right to get married.

Is he f**king kidding me?

Please listen to this CNN clip at the 3:58 mark

According to Dan, Hate Crimes is not one of the IMPORTANT LGBT issues.

What is wrong with our community? Wait, let me remix that, What is wrong with Dan Savage? He is saying that Hate Crimes does not impact us like marriage!

Am I crazy? What the f**k is he talking about?
This is why we are always running in circles, maybe it's just me, but that clip was a bunch of hater foolishness.

And who is this Corey Johnson?

Will CNN get some LGBT folks with a different and sensible opinions? I'm tired of these folks misrepresenting our community.

Who voted for the Matthew Shepard Act? part 2

Here's the list of Congress folk that voted today.

The vote was 68-29

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs ---68
Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Bingaman (D-NM) Bond (R-MO) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Burris (D-IL) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Cornyn (R-TX) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Ensign (R-NV) Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN)	Gillibrand (D-NY) Gregg (R-NH) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) Hutchison (R-TX) Inouye (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kaufman (D-DE) Kerry (D-MA) Kirk (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) McCain (R-AZ) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR)	Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (D-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (D-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---29
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN)	Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Enzi (R-WY) Feingold (D-WI) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ)	LeMieux (R-FL) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 3
Byrd (D-WV)	Hatch (R-UT)	Murkowski (R-AK)

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Congress Approves the Hate Crimes Act!

More great news!

Congress has approved the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act!

This also includes sexual orientation and gender identity as well. Now this goes to Obama, where he has promised to sign it into law.

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F**K you, John Boehner!

House Passes the Big Hate Crimes Bill!

Great news, great news!

The House voted Thursday to expand the definition of violent federal hate crimes to cover those committed because of a victim’s gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Democrats and advocates hailed the vote of 281 to 146, which put the measure on the brink of becoming law, as the culmination of a long push to curb violent expressions of bias such as the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student murdered in 1998.

“Left unchecked crimes of this kind threaten to ruin the very fabric of America,” said Representative Susan Davis, Democrat of California.

The hate-crimes measure was approved as part of a broad $681 billion Pentagon policy measure, a strategy that infuriated House Republicans who accused Democrats of employing a form of legislative blackmail.

This will given to Obama immediately. Hopefully, he sign it by this weekend.

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The House stops the Removal of Hate Crimes Provision

Last night, the House stopped the silly Repubs from striping the hate crimes items from the
Defense Authorization bill.

The vote was 178 to 234.

Here's more:

You may recall that in July, the Senate voted 63 to 28 to add the provisions of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act to the defense bill. Nearly identical legislation passed the House earlier this year on a bipartisan vote of 249 to 175. Conferees are expected to retain the hate crimes provisions in the final version of the conference report and today’s vote is a strong show of support for the hate crimes language.

So far, it's going good and it should be given to Obama to sign very soon. Let's hope for a steady pace and less mess from the Repubs.

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1 down 3 to Go

The Matthew Shepard Act passed, and it was done without funding for the F-22 program.

Now Obama has to sign it into law.

Good stuff

F-22 money removed from the DoD bill

Good news? Maybe? Hopefully?

The Senate voted to remove the funding for 7 additional F-22 jets from the DoD bill (where Matthew Shepard Act is attached to)

This removal is considered successful for the White House and possibly prevents Obama from vetoing the bill. However, the House passed a version of its defense bill that has additional funding. So there's still more to this story.

For more, go here

3 possible amendments that can Kill the Hate Crimes Bill

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) wants to add 3 other amendments to the hate crimes bill today. According to the HRC staff, they are not feeling it at all. In fact, they found the amendments to be foolish, unhelpful and should not be adopted.

So what are these 3 vile amendments? Well here they are, via HRC:

* The first Sessions Amendment would allow the death penalty to be applied in hate crimes cases under some circumstances. This Amendment is unnecessary and is a poison pill designed to kill the bill. The Amendment is being offered by and supported by Senators who oppose the Matthew Shepard Act. It’s ironic that the very Senators who have falsely argued that this bill would put clergy in jail because of their beliefs think that those same clergy should be subject to the death penalty.

* The second Sessions Amendment would place an additional burden on the Justice Department to revise its long established guidelines for hate crimes cases. This Amendment is unnecessary. The Department already has well-established, clear and precise guidelines to govern cases involving bias-motivated violence that work well.

* Finally, the third Sessions Amendment would provide additional penalties for crimes involving servicemembers or their families. This Amendment is unnecessary. Existing statutes already provide special penalties on attacks against members of the Armed Services and veterans. In addition, the vague language of the Amendment is problematic. The Amendment provides for additional penalties for injuring the property of a serviceman or immediate family member. The scope of “family member” or what constitutes an “injury” to their property is unclear.

Again, HRC are not feeling these additions. They believe these amendments are created to kill the bill and stall the process. Hopefully, senate will vote down these amendments.

The discussion starts today.

Good News, Bad News: The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act

Good News: The Matthew Shepard Act passed yesterday

Bad News: The Act is linked to a $1.75 billion in funding for F-22 fighter jets which Obama and SoD, Robert oppose of. This could also lead to a veto, which will possibly lead into more foolish "Hate on Obama" attacks.

He just can't catch a break.

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Sen. Leahy offers the Hate Crimes Prevention Act as an Amendment

Sen. Patrick Leahy will offer the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act as a bipartisan amendment to the Department of Defense reauthorization bill.

He believes it has a better chance of passing if it's a part of Department of Defense reauthorization bill. I hope so, I really do.

This is the bill we should be fighting tooth and nail for.

For his letter, please go here