The House voted on it in April, and the Senate passed it a few weeks ago. Now President Obama has signed the law that will make it a federal crime to target someone for a crime because of his or her sexual orientation or identification.
The law is named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, two men who were brutally murdered in 1998. Byrd's killers chose him because he was black, Shepard's because he was gay. But until today, the Justice Department couldn't help local authorities investigate crimes like Shepard's as they could with those like Byrd's.
It's really sad that this took 10 years...
No comments:
Post a Comment