For the first time ever, Alaska's gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender community is now protected under a new hate crime bill that President Barack Obama signed into law Oct. 28th.

The bill is named after Matthew Shepard, who was beaten to death because he was gay and James Byrd Jr. who was killed because he was an African-American.

Under Alaska law there are penalties already in place if someone intentionally commits a crime against someone on the basis of their race, religion, sex, color and national origin, but before now, sexual identity was never covered.

"You understand that the rights afforded to every citizen under our constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights both from unjust laws and violent acts," said President Barack Obama.

What was signed into law in Washington D.C. has a trickle down effect to the last frontier. "We are happy to accept the protection from the federal government when our local authorities are unable or unwilling to protect the gay and transgender community," said Identity board member, Tiffany McClain.

It is now a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation and gender identity, something that under Alaska's current laws could not be prosecuted but now falls under federal jurisdiction. "We have very weak anti-hate crime legislation in Alaska," said Rep. Max Gruenberg, D- Anchorage, he says that goes for the Municipality of Anchorage as well, "Probably

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one of the reason that the federal government felt it was so necessary to do this because a number of states, including Alaska, just do not protect their citizens."

Alaskans Together For Equality Inc. also applauds the legislation. "This is a great day for all fair-minded Americans that our government has finally taken a strong stand in opposition to violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans simply for their identity or perceived identity," said Spokesperson for Alaskans Together For Equality Inc., Tim Stallard.

This comes after a contentious summer surrounding the anti discrimination ordinance that was vetoed by Mayor Dan Sullivan.

One of the main opponents to the ordinance was Rev. Jerry Prevo. He says he agrees with this hate crime bill but he continues to stand against the anti-discrimination ordinance. "Hopefully this will satisfy the homosexual community and they will not defy our city again in pushing an ordinance that will give them special rights over all the citizens of Anchorage," said Prevo.

Although the LGBT community says this law gives them a little momentum reaching equal rights, others say this is only a small step towards that. "Ideally we would love to have our entire community in enacting local laws like that, but if in the cases where they are unwilling, we are happy to protect from the federal government," said McClain.

According to the FBI, there were about 8 thousand hate crimes in 2007. FBI estimates 16 percent of the hate crimes were targeted based on sexual orientation.

The federal penalty is the same for those who commit a hate crime for race, color, religion or national origin, up to ten years in prison if you physically assault someone in the LGBT community and up to life for a murder.

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