LGBT to be removed from hate crime definition in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico’s Conservative Senate President Thomas Rivera-Schatz is being accused of homophobia by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, after he worked with Gov. Luis Fortuño convened an extraordinary legislative session to vote on excluding LGBT people and Dominican workers from the commonwealth’s hate crimes statute, according to EDGE networks.
The statute, enacted in 2004, increases the punishment on bias crimes committed against people based on political affiliation, age and disability, however lawmakers last month approved a provision eliminating from the law sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, ethnicity and religious beliefs.
“Basically they took out the communities hardest hit by hate crimes in Puerto Rico out of the hate crimes statute,” the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Pedro Julio Serrano told EDGE. “It’s an outrage and now we’re calling upon the House to restore this to where it should be.”
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/12/05/lgbt-to-be-removed-from-hate-crime-definition-in-puerto-rico/