After so many years of waiting, I am compelled to say what a great day this is, but when I consider why we are here, I still see the challenges we face. We are here because even in 2009, in this country, lives are still lost to hatred expressed through violence.
Angie Zapata, beaten to death because she was transgender. Her murderer referred to her as “it.”
Jose Sucuzhañay, murdered by men who saw him walking arm in arm with his brother and assumed that he was gay. The assailants added anti-Hispanic and anti-gay slurs to the violence they inflicted on him.
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, for whom this act was named.
And many more.
Passing this legislation honors the lives of these good people whom we lost too soon. But we must not mistake it for a monument to them, or a plaque commemorating a distant history. We are here because the scourge of hate violence that took these lives has not ended.
Dr. King often quoted the Book of Amos, saying that we must not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
In passing this bill, Congress has unleashed the power of justice to combat hate. And it has done more.
Senator Edward Kennedy once said that this legislation sends “a message about freedom and equality that will resonate around the world.” This marks the first time that we have as a nation expressed — explicitly, and with teeth — that LGBT people are to be protected. And this law sends a loud message that perpetrators of hate violence against anyone will be brought to justice.
This message, and this powerful tool in combating hate crimes, will erode the very foundations of the hatred that has taken so many lives already. From the justice that this Act provides– the righteousness, and the end of violence, will necessarily flow.
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