By EDDIE R. RATLIFF

   HE IS KNOWN for participating in a prayer service at the beginning of his workday and encouraging the U.S. Justice Department staff to do the same. Offended by a nude statue at the entrance of the department, he ordered it covered up. He is affiliated with the Assemblies of God church, the same evangelical church that gave us Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. By all accounts, he is as conservative as any U.S. attorney general in recent memory.

    Yet to his credit, John Ashcroft recognizes a hate crime when he sees one.

    Ashcroft, the man whom human rights groups decried as too far right to fairly uphold America's laws, announced April 10 he was in fact doing just that. The case goes back to June 1, 1996, when the bodies of Julianne Marie Williams and Laura "Lollie" S. Winans were discovered in the mountains of Shenandoah National Park, bound and gagged, with their throats cut.

    Ashcroft's statement read in part: "These families have suffered what Americans now know all too well. That's the pain and destruction wrought by hate. Just as the United States will pursue, prosecute and punish terrorists who attack America out of hatred for what we believe, we will pursue, prosecute and punish those who attack law-abiding Americans out of hatred for who they are. Hatred is the enemy of justice, regardless of its source. We will not rest until justice is done for Julianne Marie Williams and for Lollie Winans."

    Twenty-two states punish hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation, and only four states plus the District of Columbia include punishment based on gender identity. Forty-three states plus the District of Columbia have provisions in their criminal codes that deal with some form of bias-motivated or hate crime.

    In Virginia, brutally murdering someone because of his or her sexual orientation is not considered a hate crime. The number of incidents in Virginia is appalling, and the failure of the legislature and the general public to recognize the extent of the problem is equally appalling.

    Roanoke7 applauds the attorney general's wise decision to prosecute these murders for what they are - hate crimes against a group of people who have increasingly become targets due to their sexual orientation. At the same time, we call upon all Virginians to look at a number of frightening cases of equal brutality that did not receive federal hate crime designation and were not prosecuted as hate crimes under Virginia law.

    In 1999, a gay homeless man's head was severed and placed on an overpass near a gay bar in the Richmond area. It was not a hate crime under Virginia law.

    In the mid-'90s, gay men's bodies started turning up in the Chesapeake Bay area. Their deaths were not hate crimes under Virginia law.

    In central Virginia, an 18-year-old boy beat nearly to death a 15-year-old whom he perceived to be gay, and that was not a hate crime under Virginia statute.

    When seven people were gunned down at the Backstreet Cafe here in Roanoke, it was not a hate crime in Virginia.

    Ashcroft was able to charge Darrell David Rice with the Shenandoah Park murders because they occurred on federal land. Had the murders occurred in a state park in Virginia, on private land or even in a public place, they would not have been a hate crime.

    Hate crime laws in any state will not prevent vicious crimes against gays. The biggest arguments against hate crime legislation centers around not creating "special status." To some, murder is murder and violence is violence no matter who the victims are, so why the need to elevate one crime over another? "Try all cases the same," they advise. It appears to some that making such distinctions sends a message that society values the lives of one group over another.

    There are countless laws already doing that, while overlooking a group that is rapidly becoming second in number of victims of hate-based violence. Furthermore, the lack of uniform labeling and reporting of hate crimes from state to state skews the FBI's hate crime statistics.

    Why is a police officer's life more valuable than a gay person's life? Why is vandalism against a church more serious than torching a gay couple's home? Why is violence directed at racial and ethnic minorities any worse than beheading a gay person? Why is physically attacking an African-American and throwing a can of beer on him a hate crime, while gunning down Danny Lee Overstreet and leaving six others with permanent scars and lifelong emotional damage is not?

    Each of these is serious and should be adjudicated because of the harm done to the group the victim belongs to.

    The fact is, the laws that give "special status" to the above-mentioned were enacted in recognition of conduct deemed particularly abhorrent in nature because hate or bias motivated them to act against a "class of persons."

    The dead and wounded are not the only victims; those in that class live in fear, forever knowing they can be targets for being part of a wider minority group. Laws are often enacted in response to past misdeeds, to discourage similar acts in the future and to emphatically state that society will not tolerate those who single out people they disagree with simply for who they are.

    The Federal Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, known as the hate crime bill, is expected to come up in the U.S. Senate soon. If it passes, it will address some of these issues; however, it will not address the many varying inequalities from state to state. It will also not absolve Virginians as individuals of the responsibility for sending a message that the commonwealth recognizes the extent of this problem and will take its own action to rectify the problem.

    Let the citizens of Virginia lead the way; lawmakers will follow!

    EDDIE RATLIFF of Salem is executive director of Roanoke7, an organization formed to support the victims of the September 2000 Backstreet Cafe shootings.

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