NEW HATE CRIMES BILL IN ALABAMA
Alabama Legislative Committee Adds Sexual Orientation to Hate Crimes Law
By PHILLIP RAWLS / Associated Press Writer

A legislative committee voted largely along party lines Wednesday to expand Alabama's hate crimes law to cover crimes committed because of the victim's sexual orientation. But some Republicans are determined to make sure the legislation goes no further in this election year.

Rep. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said House Republican leaders have agreed "to lock down the House" if the bill comes up for debate. "And we've got the votes to do it," he said.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee held a lively debate on the hate crime legislation, with the remarks covering everything from the Holocaust to capital punishment. Some Republican representatives talked against the legislation proposed by Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, but they didn't ask for a roll call vote.

The committee had a sharply divided voice vote that broke down largely along party lines, and committee Chairman Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, declared the bill approved. Holmes said he expected a close vote, but he believes he can muster enough support in the House to pass his bill.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, said that if the House passes the bill, he expects his committee to approve it, but the prospects in the Senate for passage are uncertain this year.

All seats in the Alabama Legislature are up for election.

The Legislature passed a hate crimes law in 1994 after turning back efforts to include sexual orientation in it. The law mandates longer minimum sentences for crimes committed because of the victim's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or physical or mental disability.

For instance, a crime that would normally carry a sentence of one to 10 years in prison would have a minimum sentence of two years in prison.

In 1999, Holmes began another push to add sexual orientation to the law because of the killings of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming and Billy Jack Gaither in Alabama. Since 1999, the House Judiciary Committee has approved Holmes' bill several times, and the House a few times, but it has never won Senate approval.

Ward said he has problems with hate crime laws. "We are giving certain victims higher status than others. I consider a victim a victim," he said.

Holmes said the Legislature has long differentiated between different types of crime victims. For instance, Alabama's death penalty law applies to the killing of a public official if the killing was related to the official's public office, he said.

Larry Darby, founder of the Atheist Law Center in Montgomery and a Democratic candidate for attorney general, urged the committee to kill the bill because similar laws in other countries have been used to prevent free speech. He cited British historian David Irving, who is in jail in Austria awaiting trial on charges of denying that Nazis slaughtered 6 million Jews. Denying or diminishing the Holocaust is a crime in Austria punishable by up to 10 yeas in prison.

"Irving's findings are counter to the government-sanctioned version of what is called the Holocaust. The Holocaust has evolved into a religious industry with sacred precepts that are examined only under the penalty of law. Free speech is anathema to the Holocaust industry," Darby said.

Some committee members ridiculed Darby's remarks. "I hear the black helicopters coming," quipped Rep. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery.

Holmes said he was uncertain what would happen to his bill until Darby spoke against it, but his remarks cinched the favorable vote.

Forty-eight states had hate crime laws before the Georgia Supreme Court struck down Georgia's law in 2004 as being unconstitutionally vague. Georgia's law, like Alabama's, did not cover sexual orientation.

ALABAMA'S NEW HATE CRIME BILL
Legislator Pushes Adding Sexual Orientation to Hate Crime Bill
By Crystal Bonvillian / Montgomery Advertiser

In response to the unrelated beatings of two gay men, a state legislator has proposed amending Alabama's hate crime statute to include sexual orientation.

HOW ALABAMA COUNSELORS CAN SUPPORT
THE NEW HATE CRIMES BILL BILL
Message from Equality Alabama

This legislative session, we have a bill introduced on our behalf by our longtime Friends and Supporters: Representative Alvin Holmes (Montgomery) and Senator Hank Sanders (Selma). HB57(Holmes)/SB227 (Sanders).

House Bill 57 PASSES Judiciary Committee on 1/18/06 - The next step for this bill after the second reading is the Rules Committee! The Senate Bill is still in the Judiciary Committee.

They have introduced a bill to add "sexual orientation" to Alabama's current hate crimes law. The introduction of the bill is the first step of many that we will need to accomplish to help this bill become law. We will ALL have to work together to try to make this a reality!

The first thing that we need to do is talk to the members of the committees. When a bill is introduced it is assigned a committee. That committee will review the bill and do one of three things 1. Send to the rules committee with a favorable vote, 2. Vote the bill down 3. Table the bill. We need number one to happen!

How can we do that?

We must have lots of conversations. We are including the members of the committees their addresses and phone numbers. If you live in their district you need to meet with them (in person is always best!!!) and talk to them about supporting this legislation!!!

If you don't live in their district do you know someone who does? Offer to go with them to meet with their legislator about this bill, sometimes if you support someone in doing this it makes it easier for them to do it!

Another thing that is helpful can be to write a personal letter (no FORM letters!). Tell the legislator how this bill is important to you and how you think it will benefit you and make the state a better place to live.

Another helpful thing would be to have a letter writing party for your friends who do not feel ok with meeting with their legislator! Make sure that letters are handwritten and personal to each legislator! And remember you attract more flies with honey than vinegar. Our messages need to be nonjudgmental and non-critical!

Let us know if you get a positive response from your legislator! We will be there the day the committee talks about the bill and we can help remind them of conversations they had with constituents! E-mail us at equalityalabama@equalityalabama.org so we can track our progress.

Equality Alabama will update you on the next step in this process once we have made it out of committee. Watch for updates as sometimes things move very quickly...

The other thing that you can do to help is donate money and your time to Equality Alabama! We need resources to help educate the people of this state to change their hearts and minds! By working together we can do this! It is possible but it will take time, energy and resources!!!!! Join with us and make this a reality!!!!!

HATE CRIMES LAW MUST COVER GAYS

Montgomery Advertiser, Editorial, Jan 25, 2006

Despite the opposition of a few diehards, it is difficult to believe that all of the Republican members of Alabama's House of Representatives would "lock down the House" to keep sexual orientation from being added to the state's hate crimes law.

Surely not all Republican House members are as adamantly opposed to protecting people from being physically attacked because of their sexual orientation as Rep. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster.

The Associated Press quoted Ward as saying that the House GOP leadership had the votes to complete ly block any action in the House to prevent the state's hate crimes law from being expanded to cover sexual orientation.

Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill sponsored by Montgomery Democrat Alvin Holmes that would add sexual orientation to the hate crimes law.

The current hate crimes law increases the penalties for attacks that are based on the victim's "race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity or physical or mental disability." Glaringly absent from that list is the victim's sexual orientation.

Ward and those who seem to fear this expansion need to take a deep breath and relax. Nothing in Holmes' bill in any way condones or promotes homosexuality. It simply underscores that it is wrong for anyone to attack someone else because they might be gay.

"We are giving certain victims higher status than others. I consider a victim a victim," Ward told the Associated Press.

But this bill is not about having a hate crimes law; Alabama already has one, which Ward knows full well. What Ward needs to explain is why be believes it is any less a hate crime to attack or kill someone because of their sexual orientation than because they are black or Jewish? And why does he feel so strongly that he would threaten to "lock down the House" to prevent this bill from passing?

If Alabama is going to have a hate crimes law, and it should, there is absolutely no logic to that law not including hate crimes linked to someone's sexual orientation.

By excluding sexual orientation, it is almost as if the legislators are somehow condoning attacks on gays. That is not a message House Republicans should send by going along with Ward's threat.

END DON'T AMEND LAW AGAINST HATE CRIME
Mobile Register, Editorial, Monday, January 23, 2006

SOME BAD ideas just refuse to die. Such is the case with the perennial proposal to expand Alabama's "hate crimes" law to include stronger sentences against malefactors who target victims because of the victims' sexual orientation.

Instead of expanding the state's hate crimes law, legislators ought to gut it.

Two different concepts are covered by the term "hate crimes." One is an act where the crime itself is the dangerous expression of hate, such as spray-painting a swastika on a synagogue. The threatening nature of such an act is obvious, and because of the threat it differs in kind from ordinary graffiti. Imposing special, severe penalties for such actions is reasonable.

But that's not what this bill would cover. Instead, the hate crimes statute imposes stiffer penalties for violence committed against a specially protected class than it does for the same violence against somebody not seen as needing special protections.

But a mugging victim is a mugging victim, no matter why the mugger does his deed. Imposing stiffer penalties against somebody who mugs a member of an ethnic or religious minority punishes not the crime, but the supposed bias behind it.

Last we checked, though, "thought crimes" were supposed to be the province not of free countries but of totalitarian states. And in the case of "hate crimes," the extra penalties also effectively tell non-specially protected victims that they are worthy of less-than-equal protection under the law.

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted in favor of adding "sexual orientation" to the classes protected under the state's hate crimes law. But the question shouldn't be whether homosexuals should be free from discrimination; the question should be whether any victims should be treated as lesser victims than others.

And the answer, not just for homosexuals but for all "protected" classes, should be "no."

END DON'T AMEND LAW AGAINST HATE CRIME Mobile Register, Editorial, Monday, January 23, 2006

END DON'T AMEND LAW AGAINST HATE CRIME
Mobile Register, Editorial, Monday, January 23, 2006