I’ve watched Wyoming lawmakers debate hate crime bills for three decades without moving the needle a scintilla toward passage.

After seeing the Joint Judiciary Committee discuss the issue at a meeting in Casper last week, my dismay at the lack of progress has turned to fear that Wyoming may actually be going backward. 

Intelligent, impassioned and at times gut-wrenching testimony was met with insults, impatience and a lack of empathy from some veteran lawmakers. 

A handful of tired conservative canards made predictable appearances too.

Like this one: “Is there any data that suggests hate-crime legislation causes reverse discrimination?”

No, a robust hate-crimes law wouldn’t turn the state into the thought police, explained Jeremy Shaver, assistant regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Denver. He noted that both hate speech and religious beliefs are constitutionally protected, and no one is going after them.

“What we’re talking about is when somebody crosses the line, from believing something to actually committing a crime — arson, assault, vandalism — and harming another person,” Shaver said.

Rep. Pat Sweeney (R-Casper), whose bias-motivated crime bill failed to gain support in the most recent session, said he is passionate about the issue because hate crimes “not only harm an individual but also the group of people who share that characteristic, and the community at large.

“They send the message [to victims] that ‘you are not welcome here, be afraid — we are better than you,’” Shaver explained.

Of course the committee shouldn’t have to be reminded of that. One of the most egregious examples happened here. In 1998 University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, who was openly gay, was brutally killed by two Laramie men.

Shepard was beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead; he succumbed five days later in a Fort Collins hospital. News of his murder shocked the world, sparked an international call to protect LGBTQ rights and sent a crystal clear message to the LGBTQ community about just how welcome they are in Wyoming. In 2009, a federal hate-crime law bearing Shepard’s name was signed into law.

Amber Pollock, a queer-identifying Casper City Council member, told the committee Shepard’s legacy is something Wyoming policymakers have since actively tried to ignore.

“We have worked hard to come up with alternative narratives that absolve our people, our culture and our state of any responsibility for the hate-motivated murder of Matthew Shepard,” she said.

Wyomingites say it’s time to move on, Pollock said, but that would require some amount of reconciliation. “You can’t heal a wound if you don’t clean it out first,” she said. 

Today, Wyoming joins Arkansas and South Carolina as the only three states without a comprehensive hate-crime law.

Some groups, most notably the ACLU, argue that Wyoming has had a state hate-crimes statute on the books for 64 years. But others, including the ADL and the Brennan Center for Justice, maintain the law falls short. Why, Shaver asks, aren’t Wyoming prosecutors using it to go after offenders?

Violating the statute is only a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a fine up to $750.

Some who testified said finally passing a true hate-crime bill will show the rest of the world — especially the business community — that Wyoming welcomes diversity.

“I’ve sat and watched this Legislature for the last three or four years sit and wring their hands and cry in their soup because we are in trouble as a state if we don’t figure out some ways to improve the economy,” said Dale Steenbergen, president and CEO of the Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce.

Steenbergen said the Wyoming Business Council told him that every company it has tried to recruit to the state has asked why it hasn’t addressed the hate-crime issue. Industries want their LGBTQ employees to be welcomed to a new working environment, not living in fear.

Steenbergen said he is also a member of a military-civilian advisory task force, and military leaders say Wyoming needs to help their lesbian and gay soldiers. 

It was apparently unwelcome advice for Rep. Jared Olsen (R-Cheyenne), Judiciary co-chairman, who retorted, “I’ve been wringing my hands for three or four years and spending my time and countless hours away from my family trying to make Wyoming a better place.”

“I don’t know what the Legislature is going to do at the end of the day,” Olsen told Steenbergen. “But apparently if this is the golden egg that solves the economic problems of the state of Wyoming, I’m going to make sure we have an appropriation for a big ol’ gold statue of you on the Capitol grounds.”

Support informed commentary. Donate today.

But the meeting’s nadir was a lawmaker’s response to a Casper mother’s emotional testimony about what happened to her lesbian daughter and young friends after a recent PRIDE event. She said other teens surrounded them, making crude gestures and hurling homophobic insults.

When she went to intervene, the woman said, one of the girls assaulted her and knocked the phone from her hand. The police were called, but she said the officer told her there was nothing he could do and left, refusing her plea to escort them to safety.

“As we tried to leave, the mob of students swarmed us again, took my car keys, our bags and shoved us around,” the mother said. When the police were later contacted, she said, they refused to send anyone.

“You’re running short on time,” Judiciary Co-chairman Sen. Tara Nethercott (R-Cheyenne), who had set a three-minute limit per person, curtly reminded her. “Just wrap it up.”

The woman tearfully related that her daughter had tried to commit suicide a few days later and was now in the hospital.

“She doesn’t know who to turn to, because there are no laws to protect these children and this community,” her mother said. “We need to do better than this.”

Yes, we do. And it starts with respect for the public’s ideas from the leadership of the committee assigned to study whether Wyoming needs a hate-crime law.

There’s ample evidence that it does — both in the testimony given in Casper and the mountain of material lawmakers have sifted through and largely ignored during the past 30 years.

Ultimately, the committee voted to draft two bills: one to update the 1957 anti-discrimination law, and the second to improve Wyoming law enforcement agencies’ abysmal record of reporting hate crimes to the FBI. Neither will mandate any enhanced penalties or even consider making any violation of the statute an automatic felony.

No more excuses, please. Let’s just wrap up this painfully stalled, vital work and present it to the public and the entire Legislature next year.

Veteran Wyoming journalist Kerry Drake has covered Wyoming for more than four decades, previously as a reporter and editor for the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle and Casper Star-Tribune. He lives in Cheyenne and...

Join the Conversation

5 Comments

Want to join the discussion? Fantastic, here are the ground rules: * Provide your full name — no pseudonyms. WyoFile stands behind everything we publish and expects commenters to do the same. * No personal attacks, profanity, discriminatory language or threats. Keep it clean, civil and on topic. *WyoFile does not fact check every comment but, when noticed, submissions containing clear misinformation, demonstrably false statements of fact or links to sites trafficking in such will not be posted. *Individual commenters are limited to three comments per story, including replies.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Did one of the Defendants in the Matthew Shepard case confess to having a hate towards gays as the reason for the killing or did the media invent a hate crime? Seems the media continues to further their own theory when reporting in this case.

  2. unpopular opinion: bias-motivated crimes are not more serious than an equal crime lacking bias-motivation. full stop.

    the current fad of politicians attempting to appease the screeching minority of activists demanding a new hierarchy of justice based on identity is another example of a progressive step backwards. perhaps a better debate would be how to correct/punish/remove those who continually refuse to abide by the terms polite society has set forth without being forced to factor in their identity or the identity of a victim.

  3. It was apparently unwelcome advice for Rep. Jared Olsen (R-Cheyenne), Judiciary co-chairman, who retorted, “I’ve been wringing my hands for three or four years and spending my time and countless hours away from my family trying to make Wyoming a better place.”

    Maybe Mr Olsen should “wrap up his career in the Wyoming legislature “-seems he might be more productive and happier with his family

    You may have made a difference somewhere down the line in your tenure, but not passing a hate crime bill is an abysmal failure.

    Time to giddy-up down the path, old cowboy.

  4. Mr. Drakes Political admonition is appreciated. However I don’t think the condescending view of the majority of Wyoming voters is instructive. As a small Donor I was hoping for insightful Wyoming specific updates on
    matters at hand. The left leaning views put this more as an advocacy medium which abounds in most media. Don’t push us towards the Colorado view,

    1. If you look at the top of Mr. Drake’s article you can see the “opinion” flag near his byline. If someone’s opinion is that offensive to you, perhaps you should take personal responsibility in your internet browsing habits.

      Just because you donate to Wyofile doesn’t mean they have a duty to cater to your delicate sensibilities.

      Cheers