CNN reports that the FBI knows of six homosexuals reportedly murdered in 2003 because of their sexual orientation. The 1,200 hate crimes committed due to sexual orientation amount to about one-seventh of the total for the year.
The FBI counts are no doubt artificially low for all demographics, due to underreporting by victims and poor recordkeeping by authorities. Of 11,900 law enforcement agencies reporting, only about 16 percent reported hate crimes of any kind in their jurisdictions, according to CNN.
The category of hate crimes includes acts of intimidation, vandalism or property destruction, murder, assault, robbery, burglary, theft, and arson.
I think it’s reasonable to assume no one was killed because they are heterosexual or ex-gay. But still, considering how often ex-gays complain (in religious-right propaganda) of being victimized by unnamed gay bogeymen, I think it would be interesting to see whether any of them have really pursued such complaints through official channels that can be properly documented, monitored, and prosecuted.
I am sure FotF and their ilk will try to minimize this. I can hear it now…”Only six, why more people die choking on Thanksgiving rutabaga… blah, blah,… and that’s why they don’t deserv-, eh need, hate crime’ protection. Isn’t every murder a ‘hate crime?’…blah, blah, blah…”
Don’t ya love how they always use “quotation marks” as shorthand for the words, “so-called?”
Incidentally, and only slightly OT, any ex-gay reaction to the ABC 20/20 story on Matt Shepherd’s killing not being a hate crime?
The total number of fatalities from all hate crimes was 14 in 2003. The six gays/lesbians/bis/transes accounted for 43% of all hate crime fatalities reported – vs. about 17% of all types of hate crimes. I assume there is a severe underreporting of sex-worker victim crimes, since the usual attitude of police towards sex-worker murders is “no humans involved”. So there may be an additional few gay and trans sex-worker murders not reported as hate crime murders.
Consider these statistics a floor. The federal hate crimes reporting act does not–and cannot–require state and local law enforcement to report hate crimes. Given the fact that much of the US of A does not consider anti-gay hate crimes to actually be hate crimes, one should not be surprised that much of the country does not report anti-gay crimes as hate crimes.
raj,
These statistics have to be a floor – in a book by David Mixner and Dennis Baily called “Brave Journeys: Profiles in Lesbian and Gay Courage” they profile Texas activist Dianne Hardy-Garcia, and I believe they quote a figure of one gay man murdered in Texas alone each year just for being gay.
I wonder how many non-gays get killed cause some drunken bigoted rednecks thought they were gay?
These figures definitely represent a floor. Go to the FBI website and see for yourself:
Alabama and Mississippi only reported a single hate crime each (regardless of catagories) for 2003, the lowest of all states. For comparison purposes, look at North Dakota, the least populous state with the lowest overall crime rate for 2003 — on fourth that of Alabama or Mississippi — who managed to record 18 hate crimes.
The “Uniform Crime Statistics” aren’t very uniform when it comes to reporting hate crimes.