Define the crime

THE HOUSE OF Representatives has passed a new hate crime bill that pleases gays and lesbians, angers the religious right and has provoked a veto threat from President Bush. But the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act should be judged not on the basis of who is for or against it -- or on the message it sends -- but rather on its merits.

They are considerable, but there also are problems that need to be resolved in the Senate. That will be easier if both supporters and opponents stop making extravagant claims about the bill. It is neither "one of the most significant civil rights measures in this or any other Congress," as House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) boasted, nor a threat to the right of preachers to sermonize against homosexuality, as some conservatives complain.

The bill does two important things: It expands a key definition of hate crimes to include acts of violence inspired by a victim's sexual orientation, and it provides federal assistance to local and state law enforcement agencies seeking to prevent and prosecute hate crimes. Both are worthy refinements of existing federal law.

Adding sexual orientation to the definition of a hate crime makes sense whether or not one believes that acts of violence motivated by bias should be punished more severely than other violent crimes. This legislation deals not with penalties but with the allocation of resources in a way that recognizes that bias-fueled crimes exist.

Such crimes include attacks on gays and lesbians. In 2005, according to the FBI, 14.2% of "single-bias" incidents were motivated by sexual-orientation bias. That's less than the 54.7% attributed to racial bias but more than the 13.2% with "ethnicity/national origin bias." The Justice Department already includes such incidents in its hate crime statistics, but the definition of hate crimes for purposes of federal prosecution comprises only crimes motivated by hostility to a victim's race, color, religion or national origin. The government's own statistics suggest that this is an oversight that should be rectified.