Aug

9

Bush Will Veto All Bills With the Matthew Shepard Act Attached

Filed Under Hate Crimes, Homophobia, Legal, Politics 

Task Force responds to White House threat of veto of hate crimes legislation

WASHINGTON, — White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the other day that President Bush plans to veto any bill to which the Matthew Shepard Act (MSA) is attached. Fratto said: “The qualifications [in the bill] are so broad that virtually any crime involving a homosexual individual has potential to have hate crimes elements. The proposals they’re talking about are not sufficiently narrow.”

Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has responded with these observations:

“The provisions of this legislation are extremely narrow, however not as narrow as the minds of the current administration.

“The legislation establishes narrow and specific guidelines for determining whether an incident constitutes a hate crime, including a provision that prohibits the consideration of any evidence not directly linked to the incident, which is why it has the support of law enforcement and civil liberty advocates such as the ACLU.

“The provisions of this legislation are identical to those that have been on the books since the 1960s. Just as those provisions have not led to any crime committed against a black person or a Jew constitute hate crimes, this legislation would not make any crime committed against an LGBT individual a hate crime.”

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