H.R. 1592: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007

In January of 2007, after the Democrats were elected to a majority of the seats in the United States Congress, Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) introduced the Federal Hate Crime bill H.R. 254([1]) or the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007. This law would bring a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted or life, if "the acts committed in violation of this paragraph include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill."

These penalties come into effect if an "actual or perceived" threat occurs. Because it is up to the court to determine how the criminal perceived the "race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability, of the victim," it is felt there is the possibility to abuse this law in places where more ordinary harassment or assault charges would suffice.

There are some hypothetical situations where this bill can cause what many would see as unethical penalties.

1) If two serious assaults were committed against different, but similar, healthy white male young adults, if one were a type of person protected by the legislation, then the criminal who assaulted that person may serve more time.

2) "Actual or perceived" may cause problems in cases where minor assault would have resulted in a citation, whereas now it may lead to an arrest and conviction.

This bill is seen by some conservatives a blatant attempt to normalize the homosexual lifestyle.