Today, President Barack Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

So now with this law being passed the Justice Department has the authority to investigate and prosecute fully any bias-motivated violent act where the perpetrator chose their victim based on a person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY or DISABILITY.

The House of Representatives passed this bill by a vote of 281-146 and the Senate then passed the bill by a 68-29 vote. And then of course, President Obama signed the bill into law today. I see this as an awesome start of more things to come……

I don’t know if you remember but I want to let you know who exactly Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. are. Matthew Shepard was a Wyoming college student who was brutally murdered in an act of hate violence in 1998. And James Byrd, Jr. was an African-American man who was dragged to death in Jasper, Texas in 1998.

I want to personally thank the Shepard and Byrd families for taking the initiative and pushing and pushing and pushing for this bill. It was definitely needed. And I want them to know that I appreciate all of their effort and time that they contributed. This has been a long time coming……and now hopefully they can rest a little easier at knowing that their sons made a HUGE

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