“The number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people killed in bias-motivated incidents increased by 28 percent in 2008 compared to a year ago, according to a national coalition of advocacy groups. Last year’s 29 killings was the highest recorded by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs since 1999, when it documented the same number of slayings, according to a report released Tuesday by the coalition. […] Officials weren’t sure whether reported increases were attributable to more people reporting incidents or an actual rise.” [AP]
Are Hate Crimes Stats Up Because of More Violence? Or More Reporting?
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Bri
I realize this isn’t exactly the topic at hand, but it’s related.
Can someone assure me that this is the final version of the bill – the bill they are voting on?
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-909
EdWoody
I’d say it’s a bit of both. As gay rights become more acceptable to the mainstream, the lunatic fringe becomes ever more lunatic in an attempt to fight against the wave. So there probably are more attacks. But the victims are also less willing to sit back and take it, so there are more reports too.
notke
For the past nine months, I’ve been tracking published hate crime reports from the US media. (see http://www.hatecrimereports.org) My reflection on reading most every published print report is that coverage by the media is not even. While even the slightest potential might be a hate crime gets covered in Seattle extensively, There are much more populous cities where hardly a mention has been made (Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas all come to mind). So I actually think that there is a combination of what people are willing to say/report to the police, and what/how the media is willing to cover the issue going on here. Overall, it’s clear that the media doesn’t cover most reported hate crimes.
What’s also interesting from reading story after story is how often the hate crime charges are dropped.
rick
more reporting.
dgz
both more violence, more reports, and other factors. violent crime increases when the economy shrinks. hell, it even increases with temperature.
JoeH
I was hoping your site would look at this report. As an evangelical Christian my objections to gay sexual practices are solely scriptural. To learn that violence against gay Americans has risen is horrifying. I thought we were past that. Almost equally horrifying is the possibility that evangelical Christian beliefs and rhetoric might in any way be a contributing factor. I hope they haven’t been, but I fear they probably have. We, as a body of believers, need to seek your forgiveness, for this and for atrocities committed down through the centuries against you. We have shamed the Cross of Christ. Jesus taught us and commanded us to live lives of love and outreach, to let our every action, even the action of disagreement, even vehement disagreement, sparkle with his love. And we have failed. Our first love is God, and so His direction cannot be disregarded, no matter how civically inconvenient, no matter how difficult to fathom it may be. But our next love is you, and we have sinned mightily against you. Not in disagreeing with you, not in sticking by what Scripture says, no matter the tenor of the times, but in choosing not to see you as the precious brothers and sisters you are. Please help us to find our way.
StraightGrrrl
From my experience more violence. Gay and bisexual men tend to be more quiet and discreet about reports, because they don’t want to their families to know of their orientation (especially if they were attacked at a gay bar) and because partly they feel that they deserved to be attacked. ;_;
Fitz
Well, we have had the hate filled “Faith Community” to deal with, which had been stoked into frenzy by the Bush administration, then slammed into desperation by Obama’s win. Then we have Obama and his peeps who have made it very okay with the Alan Alda types to feel good about discriminating against us while stating that they aren’t. The overall message is pressure from the hate crowd and pressure from the “love you, but…” crowd PLUS the economic downturn. Watch your back. Learn to stick together. We are Jews in a 1923 Berlin.