Lately, it seems that I have been hearing about violent crimes against LGBTQ identified people more than ever. It could be the fact that I’ve started to pay more attention or maybe they are just being brought to public more. Either way, it is disgusting to know that there are people in this world who will physically harm someone based on their gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, class and the list goes on.

Most recently, a 28 year old lesbian woman in Richmond California was brutally attacked and gang raped by four males ranging from 15 to 31 years old. The attackers have been arrested, but the trauma from this attack will remain a part of this woman’s life.

So what exactly is a hate crime and what makes it different than any other crime?

The Human Rights Campaign defines a hate crime as:

A hate crime occurs when the perpetrator of the crime intentionally selects the victim because of who the victim is. While a random act of violence against any individual is always a tragic event, violent crimes based on prejudice have a much stronger impact because the motive behind the crime is to terrorize an entire community, and sometimes the nation. 
http://www.hrc.org/issues/hate_crimes/5895.htm

Hate Crimes are not always physical, they can range from “verbal harassment, phone or e-mail harassment, property damage, threats of assault, actual assault or “bashing,” rape, and murder.”

It’s important for us to know about the laws that protect us (by us, I mean every single human being on this planet) and to make efforts to change the laws that exclude certain groups of people. Be Yr Own Queero will highlight instances of hate crimes against LGBTQ-identified people and provide education on hate crime laws.

Since I live in North Carolina, I started researching my state’s hate crime laws. The Partners Against Hate website contains a database of every state’s hate crime laws. According to their site, North Carolina has an equal amount of laws that protect churches as it does laws to protect people. These laws, however, do not extend protection based on a person’s sexual orientation. They only cover race, religion, ethnicity and gender.

South Carolina is no different. Stephen Moller attacked Sean William Kennedy, (who died 17 hours after the attack), for being gay in May of 2007 and is scheduled to be released from prison later this year. Sean’s mom, Elle Kennedy is urging people to write letters to the parole board asking them to deny Stephen parole. Despite the board’s decision, his sentence will be up in September of this year. Letters can be sent to:

Department of Probation Pardon and Parole Services

2221 Devine Street, Suite 600

PO Box 50666

Columbia SC 29250

Reference: Stephen Andrew Moller, SCDC ID #00328891

Are you as shocked as I am? This is why it’s important for us to know about these laws because we never know when we will be victimized due to our orientation and/or identity.

If you live outside of North Carolina, look up your state’s hate crime laws on partnersagainsthate.org and share with us what you find out.