Last week, the United States House of Representatives passed the Children's Safety Act of 2005, first introduced by Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) in June.

The legislation focuses on increasing restrictions on sex offenders who abuse children. In addition, an amendment was added to the bill by a vote of 223 to 199 which would expand hate crime laws to include crimes against gays and lesbians.

Sensenbrenner introduced the bill to address what he called a crisis of sex offenders in the country.

"There are 550,000 registered sex offenders, of that 100,000 are lost, we don't know where they are," said Jeff Lungren, a spokesman for Sensenbrenner's committee in the House. The bill would add many restrictions on sex offenders such as: notification when a sex offender moves to another state, requiring states to have a public sex offender Web site, and expanding the definition of sex offender to include juveniles, according to material distributed from the Judiciary Committee.

"This bill does a number of things to monitor sex offenders," Lungren said. "It aims to provide more information to the public and to parents so they can protect their children."

The Children's Safety Act is a blend of many sex offender bills that were introduced to Congress.

"What Sensenbrenner did is he took all the bills that had been introduced and put them into one large package," Lungren said.

He said the bill was passed through the Judiciary Committee and is expected to be on the president's desk this year.

Although the bill focuses mostly on sex offenders, it may be hard to get through the Senate because of the amendment regarding hate crime laws.

"There will be a very significant debate," said Christopher Wolfe, professor of political science. "Even if it passes through the Senate, I don't think it will pass through the conference between the Senate and the House. (The amendment) is certainly going to make the bill harder to pass."

Sensenbrenner does not agree with the amendment, according to Lungren.

"Unfortunately (the amendment) has nothing to do with this bill; it is something Sensenbrenner opposes strongly," Lungren said. "It's unfortunate that it was added."

Although some oppose the amendment, many in the community favor the new hate crime law.

"Hate crimes don't attack just one person, they attack a race of people," said Christian Eichenlaub, former president of the Gay/Straight Alliance and a 2005 College of Communication alumnus. "Hate crimes try to instill fear and a knowledge of hate. There's no legitimate reason to attack people based on who they are. Our government is saying that we aren't going to tolerate this any more."

Current hate crime laws make it illegal to commit a crime motivated by race, color, nationality, and religion. This bill would expand that law to include sexual orientation, gender, and disability, Wolfe said.

According to Eichenlaub, if the bill passes, it will not change people's attitudes towards gays and lesbians.

"Do people honestly pay attention to a punishment before they commit a crime?" Eichenlaub said. "As for effectiveness, one can hope that we'll all stop hurting each other, but only time will tell."

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 20, 2005.