Finally - Hate Crimes Prevention Act signed!

Yesterday, President Obama (finally) signed into law the very first protections for transgender people in US history: The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. It's about time that Hate Crimes protections were extended to ALL people based on race, religion, gender and sexuality. What I don't understand is why the "Religious" people (on the far right) are going wacko over it. Wouldn't God want ALL of his children protected, not just ones that certain groups pick and choose?
Here's why I don't understand the hatred: This week, we read an Op-Ed by Barrett Duke of the Baptist Church, titled "First Person: Gay hate crimes bill and the assault on evangelical belief." This is absolutely not true. This is the kind of propaganda that the religious right is spreading to scare people – people in their congregations that are non-thinking individuals that believe absolutely everything that a hateful preacher spews forth from the pulpit.
What this bill DOES is extend protections to gay people that already currently exist for other protected minority groups, such as blacks, hispanics and other ethnic minorities. It makes it illegal to commit a crime against any individual because of ethnic, religious, or sexual orientation. The protections already exist for the first listed groups, this bill will extend protections for sexual orientation protection. We are ALL God's children, and we live in a country that demands equal rights for all.
What this bill will do is apply federal punishments – such as long prison terms – to people that commit such crimes against any protected minority group.
What this bill does is that it essentially make it a crime to brutalize or kill a gay person that is cornered in an alley by some thugs, or beaten and tied up to a fence in freezing cold temperatures to die – as was done to Matthew Sheppard. What's wrong with offering protections and justice against that? We are all God's children. To deny protections and justice for hate crimes is NOT Christian... or if it is, it's time to reconsider religion. God certainly wouldn't preach hatred and intolerance. Jesus didn't. To put it another way: How would YOU feel if the law said it's okay to beat, rape, brutalize and kill you, and it's no problem?