Breitbart Editor Ben Shapiro Says LGBT Community Does Not Really Face Discrimination
In an interview earlier this week with Jorge Ramos on Fusion TV, Ben Shapiro, Breitbart鈥檚 editor-at-large, said that, 鈥淸t]his is not a country that discriminates against homosexuals鈥� and that 鈥渢here is a vastly minute amount of discrimination against gays in this country.鈥� To back up his argument, Shapiro cited the fact that the FBI鈥檚 hate crime statistics 鈥渟how there are about the same number of attacks on Jews in this country as there are homosexuals.鈥�
Oh, Ben. Ye of little math skills.
If Shapiro had taken the time to account for the share of the population that the LGBT community makes up, he would have discovered that the community suffers violent hate crimes at rates far higher than other targeted populations. In fact, an analysis by the Southern Poverty Law Center of 15 years of FBI hate crimes data showed that the LGBT community is far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crime.
Unlike Shapiro, we did the math. You can see it . While we are talking about hate crimes, let听us note as well that the FBI numbers greatly, greatly undercount hate crimes in this country. And that鈥檚 by a factor of about 20, according to conducted by the DOJ鈥檚 Bureau of Justice Statistics last year.
Let鈥檚 not forget, too, as , that there is also the fact that the LGBT community is 鈥渟till at an increased risk for discrimination in听,听, and听鈥� and they 鈥渙ften听听听than similarly qualified heterosexual employees.鈥� And of course they can鈥檛 marry in 33 states and in another 29 it鈥檚 perfectly legal to fire someone for being gay.
