Why The GOP Keeps Losing

This, and:


This. As Think Progress points out:

Hate crimes laws go after violent crimes, not thoughts. In fact, the law specifically stipulates that "evidence of expression or associations of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense."

Apparently unbeknownst to House Republicans, a federal hate crimes law already exists: Passed in 1968, it allowed federal investigation and prosecution of hate crimes based on race, religion, and national origin. The new law would simply add sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected groups, and allow local governments to get needed resources from the federal government for investigations and prosecutions. The need for such parity was made starkly clear more than a decade ago, in 1998, during the investigations of two different murders:

The Laramie, Wyoming Sheriff’s Office had to furlough five deputies in order to cover the more than $150,000 that it cost to investigate Matthew Shepard’s murder. Yet when Jasper, Texas investigated the lynching of James Byrd, Jr., it received $284,000 in federal funds because Byrd’s murder was motivated by race, rather than sexual orientation.

Since then, members of Congress have sought to pass an expanded hate crimes law. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed both houses in 2007, but was stripped from a larger bill after President Bush vowed to veto it.

More than thirty states already have hate crime legislation that includes anti-gay crimes -- and in none of those states has notorious gay hater Fred Phelps been arrested for his speech. It's clear what the GOP is really concerned about is any perceived infringement on their right to discriminate against gay people.

The bill passed the House easily...18 House Republicans even voted for it.