Targeting Gays, Oklahoma Senate Mistakenly Strips Hate Crimes Protections For Race and Religion
Remember a few weeks ago when the Oklahoma Senate passed an amendment declaring that the state would not cooperate with any federal hate crimes investigation and even mandating that files of potential hate crimes be withheld or destroyed so that they cannot be used to assist in any such investigation?
The purpose of the amendment was to ensure that the state did not have to abide by the expansion of the federal hate crimes laws to cover things like sexual orientation … only it turns out that there was a problem with the text of the amendment in that it actually stripped protections for race and religion…