Virginia’s hate violence and hate crimes laws, §§8.01-42.1, 18.2-57, 18.2-121 and 52-8.5, must be amended to add both real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

Background:

A hate crime is an assault or act of vandalism committed against an individual, group or property motivated by the attacker’s bias against the particular group to which the victim belongs.  Usually the attackers do not know the victim and have nothing against them personally.  The attackers target an individual for hate violence simply because of a dislike or hatred of the group to which the attackers believe the individual belongs.  Far from just affecting the victim, bias crimes leave entire communities feeling victimized, vulnerable and scared to speak out for fear of further violence.

In recent years, the US has seen an upsurge in violent hate crimes.  It has become increasingly evident that Virginia has not been spared.  Hate crimes based on sexual orientation rose nearly 6% in 2007 despite an overall decrease in the total number of reported hate crimes, according to the 2007 FBI Hate Crime Statistics Report. Hate crimes based on racial bias continue to account for more than half of all reported hate crimes with sexual orientation the third highest category at 16.6%. Hate crimes based on gender identity or expression are currently not included in the FBI report.

Since defining these crimes as hate crimes is a voluntary action taken by the responding law enforcement agency (if the police are called at all), the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs believe that the reported number of bias crimes are dramatically under-reported.

Just a few examples of bias crimes in Virginia over the past few years are:

• In 1997 Garnett Johnson, Jr. of Grayson County was murdered in a brutal act of racist hate violence. 
• On April 20, 2000, a fifteen-year old Stafford County boy was almost killed when beaten over the head with a metal pipe by another teenager who was motivated by anti-gay hatred.
• On September 22, 2000, the murder of Danny Lee Overstreet and the shootings of six others in Roanoke’s Backstreet Cafe were motivated by anti-gay hatred.  
• In September 2002, a VCU student was attacked while on his way to an evening meeting of VCU’s Sexual Minority Student Association. 
• In May, 2005,Marvin Jackson, an African-American Suffolk teenager was attacked and beaten by “friends” at a party because of his sexual orientation.
• In July, 2005, St. John’s Reformed United Church of Christ in Middlebrook was the target of anti-gay graffiti and arson shortly after the national UCC Synod passed a resolution in favor of marriage equality.
• In April 2009, a University of Virginia student and a friend were the subjects of a hate motivated attack on the University grounds.

These cases demonstrate unequivocally that hate violence against GLBT Virginians has been and continues to be a bona fide problem in the Commonwealth.

When an assault or act of vandalism is motivated by hatred of a group of persons to which a victim belongs, Virginia’s current hate crimes laws allow for the imposition of additional criminal penalties and for the possibility of civil actions.  The current laws apply to hate-motivated crimes committed against individuals because of their race, religious conviction, color or national origin.  Real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity are not covered categories under Virginia or Federal Law.

Virginia’s existing law was enacted in 1994.  When submitted to the legislature that year, the bill was modeled after the Wisconsin hate crime law, unanimously declared to be constitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1993.  Unfortunately, the Virginia legislature stripped “sexual orientation” and “gender” from the legislation before it passed and signed into law. 

The exclusion of “sexual orientation” and “gender” sent a message to Virginians that violence and harassment is somehow acceptable when committed against those perceived to be gay, lesbian or bisexual and when a victim is targeted on the basis of gender identity or expression.

Efforts to amend the law to protect GLBT Virginians since then have met with no success.

Tools to Use

Interview state and local candidates about their position on GLBT issues including hate crimes using EV’s guided interview, and let us know what they say.

Write to your Virginia delegate and senator to let them know that you want Virginia’s hate crimes laws amended to cover GLBT people in Virginia.

Tell Your Story so that we can document instances of hate violence in Virginia; report violence directed at you because of your sexual orientation or gender identity or expression to police if you feel comfortable doing so and demand that they report what happened as a hate crime.

Resources

The Virginia Anti-Violence Project

The LGBT Hate Crimes Project http://www.lgbthatecrimes.org/doku.php

Talking about Inclusive Hate Crimes Laws, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination, GLAAD http://www.glaad.org/Page.aspx?pid=482

Hate Crimes, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, http://www.thetaskforce.org/issues/hate_crimes_main_page

LAMBDA Anti-Violence Project http://www.lambda.org/avp_gen.htm

Hate Crimes, Human Rights Campaign http://www.hrc.org/issues/hate_crimes.asp

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