Bush signs `hate crime' bill, denies Simon pen

WASHINGTON President Bush signed a measure Monday to set up anational system for reporting and tabulating "hate crimes," givingSen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) an election-year bonus but stiffing thesenator on the traditional souvenir pen.

Simon, the Senate sponsor of the bill, was pleased that Bushgranted a public signing ceremony, which included more than a dozengay leaders, but was amused that the president didn't offer him apen.

Simon and Bush worked hard for the legislation, which directsthe Justice Department to find a way to count crimes motivated byrace, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

When it came time for the signing, Bush was faced with whatSimon called "an awkward situation." Bush has been working forSimon's defeat by Illinois Republican Rep. Lynn Martin.

"I guess the compromise was that they had the usual ceremony,but not in the usual way," Simon said.

Usually, the chief sponsors of the measure pose behind thepresident; this time, everyone was in the front row. And instead ofboth Senate and House sponsors receiving a pen, only House sponsorRep. Jack Brooks (D-Texas) got one.

Later, White House spokeswoman Alixe Glen said, "The pen is inthe mail."

All in all, Simon was pleased, although he was "mildlysuprised" that Bush decided to sign the bill in public.

Some Republicans reportedly had sought to engineer a privatesigning, depriving Simon of a political showcase.

In a brief speech, Bush called the Hate Crimes Statistics Act"an important further step toward the protection of all Americans'civil rights."

"Bigotry and hate still, regretfully, exist in this country, andhate breeds violence, threatening the security of our entiresociety," Bush said. "We must rid our communities of the poison wecall prejudice, bias and discrimination."

There was strong support for Bush's action from theAnti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith and leaders of the gay andlesbian lobby who worked for the bill.

"To date, both local and national responses to bias crimes havebeen severly impeded by a lack of comprehensive data," said AbrahamH. Foxman, national director of the league. The new law "will givelaw enforcement officials an effective tool in combatting hatecrimes," he said.

Robert Bray, spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian TaskForce, said the signing was historic because gay groups were given 16tickets to the ceremony. "Outside of AIDS programs, it was the firsttime openly gay and lesbian leaders have been on the White Housegrounds for something that affects them positively," he said.

Among those at the ceremony was Art Schenck, secretary of theIllinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force, who helped line up Sen. Alan J.Dixon (D-Ill.) as a co-sponsor.

"There's no question that what people call `gay bashing' ishappening around the country," Simon said. He said the IllinoisGeneral Assembly should add it to the list of "hate crimes" to becounted here.