President Obama signed into law what Congress had passed, as an amendment to the defense appropriations bill:
Crimes committed against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity may be prosecuted as hate crimes.Joe Solomonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, explained it's importance:
Now we still have DA/DT and DOMA to repeal, but this was a milestone.Today, something extraordinary happened. Love conquered hate. After more than a decade, the inclusive hate crimes bill we've fought so hard for has been signed by the president and sealed in law.
I cannot overstate the importance of this moment. This is the first time ANY federal equality measure protecting LGBT rights has become law. The very first time. And it is the first federal law to explicitly protect transgender people. It is a touchstone in our movement, a triumph of what is right. And I truly feel things will never be the same.
It also showed up how determined the majority of Republicans are to defeat such matters. They voted against this, even though it meant they were voting against money for their beloved military -- because to vote against the gay rights issue, they had to vote against the defense appropriations bill.
That's how much they didn't want to protect GLBT people.
Ralph
Correction: I referred to this as the defense appropriations bill. Rather, it is the defense policy bill. Appropriations will come later as the various committees include the cost of their portions of this bill in their appropriations requests.
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