Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people represent more than ten percent of the population; this means that if you are sitting in a class of thirty people, then more than three of those people are LGBT people. However, this extremely large minority group continues to be one of the least protected by the government and the most heavily targeted by discrimination and hate crimes. Regardless of the significant shift in public opinion regarding LGBT people over the past twenty years, laws regarding hate crimes have remained unchanged. A hate crime is an act of aggression against an individual's real or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. , or sex. Examples include battery, vandalism or threats that involve indicators of bias – evidence like bigoted slurs or graffiti. These crimes do not target the individuals who are physically or verbally beaten, but the community in which the individual is or is believed to be. a member as a whole. These offenses are much more damaging because they attack someone for who they are rather than for what they have done or have. They also undermine the fragile existence of a society by making it feel isolated and vulnerable. Currently, there are only two federal laws and 21 states, plus the District of Columbia, that protect sexual minorities from hate crimes, and both federal laws are worthless. persecuting almost all reported cases. The first, the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, simply requires the FBI to collect and review hate crime statistics provided to it by state and local law enforcement. However, these statistics must be provided voluntarily by agencies, which leaves a rather large gap...... middle of paper ......edom of discourse; they would reprimand criminal acts that are already punishable in court. Hate crime legislation is needed. Crimes are on the rise, becoming more public, more violent and more acceptable in certain areas of society. Without the proposed laws, there is little chance that this situation will become less prevalent. As the NGLTF, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a well-respected agency that fights for equal rights for homosexuals, stated in its December 1997 article, the exclusion or suppression of sexual orientation of hate crime legislation by legislators is morally indefensible at any given time. a time when anti-gay violence is widespread. Failing to address this critical issue sends a dangerous message to law enforcement and the public that anti-gay violence does not exist, or worse, is somehow less wrong than violence against other minorities..