Recently, we learned that police have arrested four young men who gang-raped a woman last month in San Francisco. They picked on her because they believed she was a lesbian. She had a rainbow Pride sticker on her car.

Three weeks ago, in New York, a group of young men beat to death Jose O. Sucuzhañay. They picked on him because he was walking home with his arm around his brother, a custom practiced in their native Ecuador. Believing he was gay, the aggressors yelled anti-gay slurs and attacked him.

Hopefully, state prosecutors will file charges that will keep these thugs off the streets for decades. But while California and New York have the toughest hate crimes laws in the country, the majority of states don’t have them at all. Consequently, hate crimes motivated by perceived or actual sexual orientation continue to proliferate. The FBI’s 2007 “Hate Crimes” report found that hate crimes against gays increased 6 percent that year, despite the fact that, overall, hate crimes decreased by 1 percent.

Both of these victims were targeted because their attackers believed them to be gay. Had the woman in San Francisco been walking with her arms around Sucuzhañay, both would have been spared.

After all, there has never been a reported hate crime based upon perceived or actual heterosexual orientation. This is something that, thankfully, straight folks don’t have to worry about. But it’s a constant worry for the GLBT community, especially when prejudice is exacerbated by current events, such as the same-sex marriage debate. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reports a direct correlation between GLBT initiatives and the number and severity of hate crimes against our community.

Laws against hate crimes don’t prevent them from occurring. But they add enhancements to sentences incurred for perpetrating them. The current lack of a federal hate crime law sends a mixed message, and President Obama should sign one in the second he takes office. He needs to send a clear statement across the nation that attacks on gays and lesbians are wrong and punishable by law.

Specifically, during his first hundred days, President Obama must make it a federal crime to attack anyone because of perceived or actual sexual orientation. To avoid legal repercussions as to whether such crimes affect federal interstate commerce, the bill should deny federal justice funds to those states that don’t have hate crimes laws.