The U. S. Senate last week passed a $680 billion defense policy bill, to which was attached the “Matthew Shepard Act,” which adds physical attacks on people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity to the list of federal hate crimes.

The significance of the law’s passage lies not primarily in its protection against physical attacks–we rightly deplore such acts of violence against people–but in its recognition of sexual orientation and gender identity as constituting specially protected classes of persons. Such application of antidiscrimination law now opens the door for federal protection of these classes of persons in contexts such as employment (the Employment Non-discrimination Act), military service (repeal of the ban on homosexuality in the military), and the definition of marriage (repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act).

One has only to observe the progression of such legislation in countries like Australia and the United Kingdom to see where we may be headed in the United States. Click to continue »