FBI Report Shows Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes Increased In 2011

The FBI has released its hate crimes statistics for the year 2011. The Anti-Defamation League notes that the overall number of hate crime incidents decreased from 6,628 in 2010 to 6,222, the lowest number of reported hate crimes since 1994. The number of crimes directed against individual because of race, religion, and national origin all decreased, but the number of incidents targeting a person’s sexual orientation continued to increase. As a result, sexual orientation hate crimes now constitute the second most frequent type of hate crime after race-based crimes. The number of religion-based crimes decreased to 1,233, 63 percent of which were directed against Jewish people and institutions. The combined number of anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant crimes totaled 111, less than 9 percent of the number of anti-gay hate crimes.  Conservatives who oppose LGBT equality often attempt to insinuate that Christians are just as victimized as gays and lesbians, but this data significantly undermines that argument.