Christian against study on Byrd Hate Crimes Act
By JIMMY GALVAN Managing Editor

While one state group is praising proposed legislation calling for a comprehensive study on the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, one local state representative calls it a "waste of taxpayer's money."

House Bill 2612, filed by Representative Marc Veasey (DFort Worth), would provide data to evaluate whether the provisions of the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act are being enforced.

"Ninety percent of the time I am against studies because they are a way to waste taxpayers' dollars," said State Representative for District 9 Wayne Christian. "Normally, studies are to humor some constituents who want something done and politicians can go home and say they allocated money for a study.

"If you want to know the results of something, normally they are pretty obvious," Christian said. "The James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Act passed up here against the wishes of a lot of citizens of our local district. We took care of the problem in Jasper, Texas.

"There is nothing that happened to those three men that needed the James Byrd Jr. Act to accomplish," Christian said. "It was a wasted effort and a lot of it was advocated by the homosexual community which was seeking elevation to recognized status."

Christian believes the residents of Jasper didn't support the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act.

"(Citizens of Jasper) had already done the right thing concerning the horrible James Byrd Jr. incident," Christian said. "And I am not making light of the death of James Byrd Jr. - it was horrible. The idea behind the James Byrd Jr. Act was to save the minorities from the evil extremists of Deep East Texas and that was not the situation.

"Jasper stood proudly and proved themselves to be what good East Texan folks are and that is good, Godfearing folks," Christian said. "Raising this issue again is going to be spending state taxpayer's dollars which quite frankly we have better things to do with their money than study a situation that doesn't need studying."

But Paul E. Scott, executive director for Equality Texas, believes the study is needed to measure if law enforcement officials are properly using the act.

"There have been more than 1,500 hate crimes reported in the last five years but only eight that have been prosecuted as hate crimes successfully," Scott said. "And based on information we have obtained, there is a general lack of knowledge about how this act is to be used."

Scott said in many reported hate crimes across the state, prosecutors have chosen to take the case as an assault case, which would be easier to prove.

"Our key concern is that we don't have any real information on how this act is being used," Scott said.

The bill still needs to be passed out of committee before it can be presented to the House for a vote. Scott believes the bill has a good chance of passing the House.

"There is no agenda behind this," Scott said. "It has been five years since the act was passed and it is really necessary at this point to see where we are with prosecution to see how this bill may need to be strengthened."

But Christian believes there is an agenda behind the call for a study and firmly stands against it.

"I look forward to the day when we can treat everybody equally but we are not at that point yet," Christian said. "There are still these groups that want preferences because of some identity, whether it be race or sexual preference. These groups want a place to stand and preach their sermons and I think we already do a good job at preaching what is right in our churches of Jasper County and Deep East Texas.

"We stood correctly during the horrible James Byrd Jr. incident and I think we stood together and stood for what was right," Christian said. "There is always ways to improve but to bring this issue up again is unnecessary and is not comfortable to the people of Jasper."