HRC Back Story

Today Joe Solmonese released a video celebrating today's Senate passage of the hate crimes legislation. The passage of the hate crimes bill which marks the first time a trans-inclusive piece of federal legislation has ever passed both chambers of Congress. Watch the video:

Full transcript of the video below:

Hello, I’m Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign.

Today we made history together.  An inclusive hate crimes bill passed in the Senate with sixty bipartisan votes in favor – thwarting efforts by our opponents to shut us down.  Since its introduction 10 years ago, federal hate crimes legislation has never been this close to becoming law.  It is truly a moment to celebrate an incredible victory for the GLBT community.  The hundreds of thousands of you who sent emails, faxes, handwritten letters and made phone calls brought us here today and personally I want to thank you for making this moment a reality.

Of course, we aren’t at the end of the road and we must continue fighting to write the Matthew Shepard Act into law.  It’s now an amendment to a defense authorization bill that will go to what’s called a conference committee – made up of members of both the House and the Senate. Because of all of our hard work in electing fair-minded majorities in Congress, we’re well poised for the amendment to make it through this committee.  At that point the ball will be in the President’s court. The White House has already threatened a veto and we’ll be calling on you to take action once again.

So let us take pride in our success – today we made a giant leap toward giving law enforcement the tools they need to protect our community… to end the string of GLBT victims of hate-filled violence.  This road has been long but with your continued involvement and support we can also win the battles that lie ahead.

Thank you.