ABSTRACT
Hate- or bias-motivated violence has taken and continues to take a variety of forms, from symbolic to fatal assaults. It also has implicated and continues to implicate a range of perpetrators, from intimates to strangers to institutions such as the state, religion, and medicine. Violence against homosexuals and people presumed to be homosexual has been recorded for as long as the lives of gay men and lesbians have been documented. The civil rights movement, the contemporary women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, and the victims' rights movement have fundamentally reshaped the politics of violence in the United States and abroad. The basic claim put forth by the crime victim movement is simple: victims of crime, especially violent crime, need and are entitled to special assistance, support, and rights. As the most established antiviolence organization in the United States, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) was founded in 1969; its primary focus is on anti-Semitic violence.
