Published: August 14, 2008 11:49 pm         

Crowd at rally urges Council to pass hate crimes law resolution

TERRE HAUTE — Around 75 people gathered Thursday night on the steps of the Vigo County Courthouse to urge the Terre Haute City Council to pass a resolution supporting statewide hate crimes legislation.

The crowd sang “We Shall Overcome” and held up signs reading “Terre Haute United Against Hate, Racism and Prejudice.”

“What an awesome sight,” said Jeff Lorick, director of the Terre Haute Human Relations Commission. Thousands of Americans are victims of hate crimes each year, he said.

By voting for a hate crimes resolution, the City Council would become “the first city council in the state to do this,” said Theressa Bynum, president of the Greater Terre Haute NAACP, which organized efforts to put forward the resolution.

Later Thursday night, the City Council voted for the resolution 8-1.

Passing hate crimes legislation is “about doing the right thing,” said Greg Porter, a member of the Indiana House of Representatives from Indianapolis and an author of Indiana’s proposed hate crimes bill. “Equitable treatment, that’s what we’re about,” he said.

Bynum urged the crowd to leave the courthouse steps around 6:45 p.m. and attend the City Council meeting at 7 in City Hall. Most of the crowd went to the meeting to hear the council discuss and then vote on the resolution.

“What we do here today is being watched,” said Todd Nation, president of the City Council and a speaker at the rally. “This is a good thing,” he told the crowd.

Hate crimes legislation holds people who commit hate crimes accountable, Bynum said after the rally. Indiana’s proposed hate crimes law would require police to report hate crimes and would allow for enhanced penalties in crimes in which hate against a class of people was a motivating factor, she said. There are already laws that allow for stiffer penalties when the victim is a police officer, Bynum noted.

Several area politicians were in the crowd at the rally Thursday evening. State representatives Clyde Kersey, D-Terre Haute, and Vern Tincher, D-Riley, spoke in favor of the hate crimes law. Indiana can either pass a hate crimes law or “remain mired in the muddy soil of the status quo,” Tincher said.

Kendall Boyd, a prosecutor in the Vigo County prosecutor’s office and former Terre Haute city attorney, urged the crowd to write their lawmakers to urge them to pass a hate crimes law. “This statute protects everybody,” he said. “You, too, could be a victim of a hate crime.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.