Matthew Shepard Act

From Wikipedia:
"Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act"

Congress passed this act on Oct 22, 2009 and President Obama signed it on Oct. 28, 2009. It also expands a 1969 Federal Hate Crime Act. Whether you think gay marriage should be legal or not (which is a major topic around the country right now) I don't think any sane person will object to protecting gay, lesbian and transgender people from hate crimes and those that do object are probably the ones who would commit the hate crime anyways. I don't understand why it took 40 years for this extended bill to be made. At least now it is legally included and hopefully the police and others will work to protect every person whether they are gay, straight, man, woman, black, white or anything in between.

There are still many countries in the world where homosexuality is illegal and can result in prison (Jamaica) or even death (Iran.)The world should work together to make being homosexual legal everywhere. You may not agree with what homosexuality stands for, but every human deserves certain basic rights and being gay or lesbian should be a right and not a privilege (or even illegal.)

Homosexuals should be allowed to marry, adopt, serve in the military and live under the same laws as heterosexuals do. I am not personally gay, and see no concrete reason why homosexuals shouldn't be equal under the law as everyone else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard_Act