US House of Congress Speaker Nancy Pelosi Dem

The US Congress Thursday approved the expanded hate crimes bill including crimes because of sexual orientation and disability.

The amended bill is attached to a $680 billion defense spending bill which almost assures its passage by the US Senate. Unlike President Bush, the current President Barack Obama has indicated he will sign the new hate crimes law.

“The inclusion of ‘thought crimes’ legislation in what is otherwise a bipartisan bill for troop funding is an absolute disgrace,” said Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, head of the GOP conservative caucus.” quoted in The Washington Post

“No American should ever have to suffer persecution or violence because of who they are, how they look or what they believe,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), noting that hate crimes legislation has been on her agenda since she first entered Congress more than two decades ago.”

“She added that it’s been 11 years since the gay Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard, whose name was attached to the legislation, was murdered. Washington Post

Hate crimes against gays have been documented. Are the those living with disabilities subject to hate crimes is a question?

The US Justice Department recently noted that Americans living with disabilities are 50% more likely to suffer violent crime. People with disabilities suffer more violent crime

The reason for this increase is due to the weakness and vulnerability of those with a disability. It is also due in part to hostility people feel towards the disabled which can be explained simply from the fact that they look or act different.

Hate crime has different definitions but it is by consensus a crime motivated in whole or part by the perpetrators “bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor. Hate Crime in Canada Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.

Sadly there are those in society who look on a person in a burqa, wearing a turban, walking oddly due to Cerebral Palsy or some other visible sign of difference and get irritated. Some of those irritated people become resentful and angry. Some of those angry people physically assault the object of their anger or someone who looks the same.

For those living with disabilities, it is hard to believe they can instantly become a hated member of society by virtue of their bad knees, arthritis, post polio syndrome, blindness or MS.

For a UK discussion see the BBC article Does disability hate crime exist?

Laws should protect those living with disabilities from being victims of crime simply because they are disabled. The United States is moving in that direction.