The FBI has released it’s hate crime statistics for 2007, and they say there were 1460 hate crimes based on sexual orientation. If you take out the 27 that were anti-heterosexual crimes, there were 1433 crimes against the LGB community last year (transsexuals don’t seem to be included as a category). That’s 3.9 every day…

The FBI statistics reveal that hate crimes against our community are on the rise, whereas other types of hate crimes are going down.

But I’m a little suspicious- the homicide numbers seem low. They say only 5 LGBT people were killed last year. But the video from FightOutLoud.org I mentioned back in early March documented 7 deaths in just the first two months of this year: Shanesa Stewart, Adolphus Simmons, Alexio Bello, Patrick (“Patricia”) Murphy, an unidentified transgender woman in Detroit, Lawrence King, and Simmie (“Beyonce”) Williams Jr. How can only 5 have been killed in all of last year when we had 7 die in just two months this year?

I haven’t been tracking the stats very well since then, but just the other day two elderly gay men were bludgeoned to death in their home – Milton Lindgren, age 70, and Eric Hendricks, age 73. I’m sure there are others as well.

I’m guessing the FBI’s standards for calling something a hate crime are a bit too stringent. Looking at who’s been killed so far this year it’s overwhelmingly black, hispanic and/or transgendered people getting killed. It makes you wonder if those killings are getting handled properly and correctly labeled as hate crimes.

Also, given how the campaigns have gone, it’s pretty clear which presidential candidate will be more likely to A) have the FBI report the data correctly, and B) take meaningful steps to reduce the violence against our community.