Homosexual people make up ten percent of the population; that means if you are sitting in a classroom of thirty, then more than likely three of those people are gay. However, this overwhelmingly large minority group continues to be one of the least protected by the government as well as most heavily targeted by discrimination and hate crimes. Regardless of the powerful shift in public opinion on homosexuality during the last twenty years and the outcry for more government intervention in the case of hate crimes and other such atrocities, the laws have remained invariable. A hate crime is an act of aggression against an individual's actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religions, disability, sexual orientation, or gender. Examples include assault and battery, vandalism, or threats which involve bias indicators - pieces of evidence like bigoted name-calling or graffiti.These crimes do not target the individuals who are physically or verbally battered but the community the individual is or is thought to be a member on a whole. These offenses are far more damaging since they attack someone for who they are rather than what they have done or possess. They also tear at the fragile existence of a society by making them feel isolated and vulnerable. Currently there are only two federal laws and 21 states, plus the District of Columbia, which protect sexual minorities from hate crimes, and both federal laws are worthless in persecuting nearly all cases reported. The first, the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, merely requires the FBI to collect and examine hate crime statistics given to them from state and local law enforcement agencies. However, these statistics must be volunteered from the agencies, which leaves a rather large loophole for bigoted agents to crawl through; therefore, many statistics are massively misrepresented. One state, Alabama, reported that there were no hate crimes whatsoever in their last poll, which is ridiculously unlikely...
