It has been a long, arduous battle to get federal hate crimes legislation expanded to include acts of violence based on sexual orientation. The House has already passed legislation incorporating such an expansion of the original 1968 Hate Crimes statute covering religion, race, color and national origin, but the bill--a bipartisan effort of Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA), just made its way through the Senate with the minimum 60 votes needed for passage.
Now, I know this is on the front page, but what kos' post didn't tell you is that the Hate Crimes expansion in the Senate was tacked onto the defense appropriations bill currently being debated--and that Bush is expected to veto the whole thing, just because of this amendment.
More below...