Concern high over anti-gay violence

From a series of street bashings in Seattle to the baseball bat murder of an Ecuadorean immigrant in New York, episodes of anti-gay violence punctuated a year now ending with police investigating the alleged gang rape of a lesbian near San Francisco.

Advocates said today they do not know whether the threats, beatings and murders reflect a true rise in attacks or increased reporting of hate-based crimes that persist even as gays gain greater visibility and legal protections.

"When you are talking about hate crimes, people think someone is likely to report it, but in some communities the message is not always clear that our society has accepted LGBT folks," said Sarah Tofte, a researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch, referring to the acronym for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.

FBI statistics show there were 1,265 hate crimes based on sexual orientation in 2007, up from 1,017 two years earlier and 1,239 in 2003. That compares to 3,820 racially motivated incidents in 2007 and 1,400 in which the victim's religion was a factor.

Because not all states allow attacks motivated by anti-gay bias to be charged as hate crimes and because some victims are reluctant to reveal their sexual orientations to police, gay and transgender rights advocates suspect the numbers to be much higher.

More of the story can be found at MSNBC.