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法律类文章精选：A BURNING IN ALABAMA
3 A BURNING IN ALABAMA
The savage murder of a gay man stuns a state where hate-crime laws do not protect homosexuals
“This is not the type of place where this happens," city council president George Carlton told a reporter, after the horror became public in his hometown, Sylacauga, Ala. He echoed what was said in Jasper, Texas, a year ago. Few people then had ever heard of Jasper. A week ago, even fewer could have pointed out Sylacauga on a map. A tiny city of 13,000, halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery, Sylacauga was known for its white marble quarries, textile mills and ice-cream factory. But last week Sylacauga, like Jasper, became a chapter in the recent history of hatred.
According to police, Steven Eric Mullins, 25, and Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21, plotted for two weeks to murder Billy Jack Gaither, 39. On Feb. 19, they arranged to meet him at a Sylacauga bar and lured him to a secluded area. There they beat him and dumped him into the trunk of his car. They then drove about 15 miles to Peckerwood Creek in Coosa County. There, says Coosa County Sheriff's Deputy Al Bradley, "they took him out of the trunk, took an ax handle and beat him to death." They set two old tires aflame, says Bradley, "then they put the body on the fire." They did it all, the deputy says, because Gaither was gay.
Gaither's death has become a rallying point for gay-rights organizations' and state legislators' pushing a bill that would extend Alabama's three-year-old hate-crimes law beyond race, color, religion and national origin to cover crimes related to sexual orientation as well. "It's unfortunate that somebody had to lose his life in order for this legislation to pick up momentum here in the state of Alabama," says state Representative Alvin Holmes, who failed to get the original law amended when it was passed in 1996. Holmes filed for extending the law after Matthew Shepar
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