Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Virginia doesn't protect gays
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Dyana Mason and Mark E. Board
Mason is executive director of Equality Virginia. Board is chairman of the board.
This week Americans will, for the 10th year, mourn the tragic murder of Matthew Shepard. His murder evokes memories that are hard to relive -- memories of a promising 21-year-old college student beaten to death and left tied to a fence outside of Laramie, Wyo., just because he was gay.
This tragic anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on where Virginia stands in protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from hate violence and to commit to action that will prevent hate and bias crimes in the future.
Some may want to believe that Shepard's hate-motivated murder is far in time and distance from today's Virginia. The reality, however, is that violence against GLBT Virginians continues here unabated and, too often, unpunished.
A few examples underscore this unfortunate truth:
n Just two years after Shepard's death, Ronald Gay walked into a Roanoke gay bar and opened fire, killing one and injuring six others. Gay, having been teased and harassed because of his last name, took his anger and rage out on innocent Virginians.
n In 2002, several Virginia Commonwealth University students were attacked as they were gathering for a meeting of a gay student group.
n In 2006, a young man was beaten and nearly killed after leaving a Richmond gay bar. His attackers used anti-gay epithets during the attack.
n In 2005, a United Church of Christ building in Middlebrook was vandalized by fire and anti-gay graffiti just days after the denomination voted to support marriage equality.
These stories are among hundreds describing continued violent incidents of hatred targeting GLBT people across the country and in Virginia.
In 2006, the FBI reported that out of 7,722 hate crimes reported nationally, 16 percent were based on sexual orientation -- even higher than crimes based on ethnicity or national origin.
And in Virginia, the picture is similarly grim. According to a study, "State of Violence," published last month by Equality Virginia's Anti-Violence Project, 50 percent of survey respondents asked about hate violence reported experiencing some form of hate violence or harassment in their lifetime. These incidents occurred in every region of the commonwealth at similar rates. Whether someone is in urban Northern Virginia or rural Southwest Virginia, they are just as likely to be victims of anti-GLBT hate crimes.
Virginia is one of 19 states in the country that has no law making it a crime to engage in violence against a person simply because of sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This makes GLBT Virginians more susceptible as targets of such crimes.
Given the continued prevalence of such violence, it is inexcusable that a state as diverse as Virginia does not provide hate crimes protection.
Americans have said anti-gay hate violence should not be acceptable. Polls show that nearly 70 percent of Americans favor a strengthened national hate crimes law that includes both sexual orientation and gender identity, such as the Matthew Shepard Act. Unfortunately, it has not yet passed despite support from the religious community, mainstream America and police and other public safety agencies. That leaves Virginians unprotected both at the state and federal level.
It is especially important for Virginians to support changes in national and state policy and law to extend hate crimes protection because, unlike other acts of violence, such crimes are not directed simply at the targeted victim. Such crimes are meant to evoke terror in and intimidate the entire community.
Hate violence will not, however, be eliminated solely by changes wrought in policy by voters and lawmakers. Hate crimes evolve out of a larger cultural epidemic of fear, bullying and learned hatred.
To truly honor Shepard's memory on this sad anniversary requires each of us as members of our communities to speak out every day for a fundamental human right: Each and every one of us should have a basic right to safety, and none should have to fear being targeted for violence just because of who he or she is.
