Hate Crime Bill

Stephen Colbert Report with Dan Savage

Hate Crime Bill
The US Senate passed -- with a 60-veto filibuster-proof majority

Senate adds hate-crime measure to war bill By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 28, 2007 WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Thursday approved a long-debated measure that would expand the federal hate-crime law to cover violence against gays and, in an unusual gambit to make it difficult for President Bush to carry out his veto threat, attached it to a defense bill. Supporters of the hate-crime legislation mustered the minimum 60 votes they needed to overcome a threatened filibuster. The House approved the bill earlier this year as a stand-alone measure, but neither chamber appears to have the votes to override a veto. "We have never had this bill with the potential to go as far as it is," said Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.), one of the chief sponsors, who pleaded for the president to sign it as a "legacy that he can claim on an important civil rights issue." Read more here: