House bill would expand hate law

A Feb. 25 hate crime in Chapel Hill continues to spur N.C. lawmakers to take action on discrimination and violence in the state.

A bill introduced Wednesday in the House would expand the state’s hate-crime laws to include sexual orientation, along with gender, age and disability, as a protected category.

A similar bill was introduced in the Senate last month.

Proponents of the changes say Thomas Stockwell’s assault in Chapel Hill, during which a group of at least a half-dozen people attacked Stockwell while yelling anti-homosexual epithets, propelled the desire for the legislation.

“I think there’s particular interest in it this year because of the anti-gay attack on Franklin Street,” said Ian Palmquist, executive director for programs at Equality N.C. “This attack brought this to the public’s attention.”

Previous legislation, under the Ethnic Intimidation Act, only penalizes hate crimes based on “ethnic animosity.”

The bill also would increase criminal penalties for offenders, upping Class 2 or 3 misdemeanors to Class 1 offenses if they were committed against an individual for reasons including race, gender and sexual orientation.

The legislation also could allow higher-level misdemeanor charges to be bumped up to felonies.

“To me it has some good language in it that really protects everybody,” said Rep. Susan Fisher, D-Buncombe, co-sponsor of the bill. “I look at things from that standpoint often: ‘What are we doing to try to protect people from being discriminated against?’”

Though the bill proposes protection for a number of groups, some opponents argue that the legislation is merely a way to legally defend homosexuality.

“I think that the fundamental, underlined attempt in this legislation is to gain legal legitimacy for alternative sexual behaviors,” said John Rustin, director of government relations for the N.C. Family Policy Council.

The House has proposed similar legislation in the past, but it proved unsuccessful. Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said that a bill was filed in the House after Matthew Shepard’s murder in 1998 in Laramie, Wyo., but that it failed to garner enough support.

“Anything that has to do with the same-sex, homosexuality issue triggers a reactionary response,” said Harrison, one of the new bill’s co-sponsors.

Rustin said that state laws such as the crime against nature statute classify homosexual acts as illegal and that a law protecting homosexual individuals condones the acts.

Others say police will not be able to determine criminals’ motives or decide whether a crime was committed for discriminatory reasons.

But Rep. Jennifer Weiss, D-Wake, said discriminatory speech can identify an act as a hate crime.

“It just depends if people have spoken with animosity while conducting the act or after the fact,” Weiss said. “I think that’s evidence of a hate crime.”

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.