U.S. Committee to vote on Hate-Crime Bill

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee will vote on a controversial legislation next week that seeks to add homosexual and transgender people to the list of classes federally protected from hate crimes. H.R. 1913, named the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Act of 2009, is expected to be passed by the committee next week and come to the House floor for a vote in the spring, announced Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the original co-sponsor of the bill and an openly gay member of Congress, on his website. An identical legislation (H.R. 1592) was passed by the U.S. House in 2007. The Senate later attached the hate crimes legislation to a high-priority defense spending bill, which included funding for the Iraq War, in a political maneuver to pressure former president George W. Bush to pass the amendment. But Bush said the spending bill and the hate crime legislation were two separate issues and vetoed the bill including the legislation.
http://christianpost.com/Society/Politics/2009/04/house-committee-to-vote-on-hate-crimes-bill-17/