Matthew Shepard Act

The Senate is preparing to start debating the Matthew Shephard Act that would add gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation to the list of hate crimes. The Human Rights Campaign has been campaigning aggressively to get this passed, as it should, it is much needed since hate crimes based on sexual orientation account for one in sex hate crimes . They have produced a fantastic Youtube video which can be found here http://youtube.com/watch?v=GOqlrHgrSgc.

The House has already voted, Minnesota's delegation voted along party lines except Peterson of course joined the bigots Republicans on this issue.

The Senate is about to vote so I of course e-mail Coleman and Klobuchar to urge them to vote yes. I never got a reply from Klobuchar because her constituent services are, well, terrible it seems. (I never get replies from her.)

I did however get a very prompt reply back from Coleman (as always, I know Klobuchar is new but her office should be able to reply back to a simple email by now). And you know what his email said, since Minnesota has such anti-discrimination laws and they work fine, I am "inclined to support this legislation." SINCE WHEN DOES HE SUPPORT GAY RIGHTS! It's one of the reasons he turned Republican I've heard, abortion, gay marriage, and because he didn't think Democrats did enough for education (ha).

I really am quite confused. He refused to sign onto any gay right's issues as mayor because the issues started including transgendered people and this legislation does too. I really am baffled as to why he is inclined. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy that he saw the light, well at least partially, but I really just don't get it. Meh, we'll take all the votes we can get I spose. Maybe this will just be another thing to nail him for in his primary.