Inside The Washington Lobby

by Chai Feldblum and Laura Markowitz

Hate Crimes Success

It was a long shot, but gay rights advocates and their congressional supporters decided to go for it, and their strategy worked!

The Hate Crimes Statistics Act passed the U.S. Senate without the addition of the anti-gay amendment that had been proposed by Senator Jesse Helms, RN.C. The act, signed into law by President Bush on April 24, requires the attorney general to gather statistics on crimes motivated by prejudice on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. It will enable law enforcement officers to focus their resources on combating such crimes. That means, down the line, more protection against gay-bashing.

The strategy actually began last summer. At that point, the bill's sponsors wanted to bring the bill to the Senate floor. It had already passed the House of Representatives several months earlier. During House consideration, some conservatives were concerned that the law would result in substantive civil rights protection for gays. The House, therefore, added a statement of the obviousthat the bill was not a gay civil rights bill and did not give protection against antigay discrimination. (We do need to pass that kind of bill at some point.) Getting the bill through the Senate, though, was going to be tough because Senator Jesse Helms had already circulated a strongly anti-gay amendment to his colleagues.

"The homosexual movement threatens the strength and survival of the American family as the basic unit of society," said Helms' amendment. "State sodomy laws should be enforced... the Federal Government should not discrimination protections on of sexual orientation, and school curriculums should not condone homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle in American society." Ironically, of

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course, the language and sentiments of this amendment are precisely the elements that cause the type of violence that the underlying hate crimes bill is trying to address.

Although Helms' amendment was clearly outrageous and may not even reflect the true feelings of 51 members of the Senate, the fact is that members of Congress always have an eye to their reelection campaigns and therefore often find it hard to vote against these types of statements.

The strategy began in July when Senator Paul Simon, D-Ill., a primary co-sponsor of the bill, and Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a conservative who is also a co-sponsor of the bill, considered ways to undermine the anti-gay Helms amendment. They, and the bill's supporters, came up with an alternative amendment that said, "Nothing in this bill encourages or promotes homosexuality."

Simon and Hatch then collected a number of letters from gay and mainstream religious and civil rights organizations such as the Police Executive Research Forum, the American Jewish Congress, the ACLU, People for the American Way, and others, saying they opposed Helms' amendment and specifically endorsed the Simon-Hatch substitute amendment. Having these types of letters from a range of organizations is often useful in defeating radical conservative amendments.

Unfortunately, there was never any action on the Senate floor in July on this bill because it was the end of the session and the bill was particularly vulnerable to a filibuster. (Helms would talk endlessly until 60 members voted to end

May, 1990

bills is at the discretion of the leadership-primarily Senator George Mitchell, D-Maine who decides which bills will get floor time.

When the bill came back to the floor in mid-February, Simon and Hatch had the letters and their one-sentence alternative amendment to fight with-which they hadn't had a chance to use in the summer. They modified their alternative amendment somewhat to address Helms' amendment. They added the fact that American family life is the foundation of American society and the schools should not "de-emphasize" the critical value of American family life. They also noted that nothing in this bill should be construed to promote or encourage homosexuality. No one knew if this strategy would work, but advocates and Congressional allies alike hoped for the best.

Not surprisingly, the Hatch-Simon amendment passed unanimously-who was going to vote against American family life? The real test came ten minutes later when Helms offered his amendment, and made it clear that he felt Senators should vote for both amendments. He also made a not-too-veiled threat that those who voted "no" on his amendment would have some explaining to do to their constituents. Senators Robert Dole, R-Kansas, and Hatchboth noted conservative Republicans, stood up and said they would vote against Helms' amendment. And the near miracle happened Helms' amendment was defeated by a vote of 77-19.

What does it mean that the Senate turned down an opportunity to pass an anti-gay amendment? We do not believe

should not provide debate-a difficult-vote to get). The this indicates a substantive change of

leadership of the Senate does not usually like to schedule bills that will be filibustered, unless there is no alternative. As a general matter, action on all

heart on the part of members of Congress about homophobiabut that is partly because we don't believe that the passage of anti-gay amendments by the

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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE Page 19

Senate in the past has necessarily been based on deep-rooted personal homophobia. Rather, they come about because members of Congress have always been scared to vote against something that would haunt them in their next election campaign.

The key to turning around an anti-gay vote, therefore, is to come up with an alternative that Senators can vote for, which states some affirmative position but does not engage in gay-bashing. The victory, then, will often have less to do with turning around personal homophobiawhich was never necessarily the main motivating factor-and more to do with setting up a situation that will allow Senators not to have to vote for a hateful anti-gay amendment.

This revelation is not new but it reinforces once again the need for advocates to have a pulse on what moves Congress and to then come up with strategies that

will accommodate their election fears in the short run. Of course the real resolution must be to change the minds of a majority of constituents across the country so that the election fear for members will be to vote against gay rights, not for gay rights. At that point in time, we will finally be able to drop the cover of offering to an election-sensitive Congress less drastic alternatives to antigay amendmentsa time we are really looking forward to. ▼

Laura Markowitz is a lesbian activist and editor of a national magazine for family therapists.

Chai Feldblum is an attorney for the ACLU AIDS Project.

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