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Originally Posted by irateplatypus
i'm sure they're reliable stats in themselves... but there is no context with which to frame the data.
how did they determine that the crimes were anti-gay instead of just crimes that happened to have gay victims?
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Police and gay rights organizations (HRC, Stonewall, etc...) track hate crimes against gays the same as race, religious, gender hate crimes. The attackers shout homophobic slurs and target gatherings specific to gays to single out victims. These additional circumstances must be proven in court because they carry additional charges and penalties.
Unfortunately, many times the hate crime specific data gets tossed out due to a plea bargain or insufficient evidence (the victim was alone and so no other witnesses could verify the "suck on this, faggot" taunts while he was being kicked in the face), so if anything the numbers only reflect some fraction of actual occurences.
Sadly, the anti-gay policies pursued by our government only help to justify the ideas among these idiots that they are justified in there hate and terrorizing of gays.