Last week, another person, a Fijian immigrant, fell victim to hate and intolerance that continues to grow in this country. To a fellow blogger, this hate crime hit closer to home.

One of my sister’s co-workers, Satendar Singh, was killed in a hate crime attack last week at Lake Natomas. He was at a party with some friends and family when a group from a Russian church started calling him racist and homophobic names, harassing him and his whole party for most of the day.

As his party started to leave, a group of them cornered him and they got into a physical fight. One of them shoved Satendar and he fell and cracked his skull. He was declared braindead when he arrived at the hospital. A few days later, his aunt and uncle had to take him off of life support. His parents, who live in Fiji, were unable to get a visa in time to visit.

Satendar Singh was known among his family and friends as “the lucky one” because at the age of 19, he had won a green card through this country’s Diversity Visa Lottery Program, allowing him to leave Fiji for the United States. Singh had recently received a promotion at his employment and had decided to celebrate it with his friends and family at the park. What better way for an immigrant to celebrate news about his promotion – a symbol of the American Dream – especially finding out about it right before the Forth of July weekend. However, his celebration ended in travesty.

Witnesses reported that his attackers targeted Singh because a group of fundamentalists didn’t like what they were seeing. They had noticed he was the only one at the picnic without a date and was displaying unmanly physical affections towards other men as he hugged and danced with the men from his party. This type of behavior was not only unAmerican, but also unchristian and immoral.

The Sacramento Bee initially reported that his friends told reporters that he was not gay, however, as the story unfolded, family members told Nathan Feldman of Sacramento’s “Being Gay Today” cable-access show, that “they knew of Satendar Singh’s sexual orientation, and that it had never interfered with their deep love for him.” The assault started when his attackers started hurling explicit homophobic slurs and racist remarks at him and his party. Things escalated when the attackers called for backup.

Singh and his friends tried to leave, however, they were blocked as soon as the Slavic’s group backup arrived. Once the fight ensued, one of the men struck Singh in the face hard enough knocking him unconscious and causing him to fall backwards and crack his head, which ruptured part of the brain stem that controls most of life’s functions. He died four days later at Mercy San Juan hospital.

The Sacramento police have yet to identify Singh’s attackers because the attackers were able to escape before the authorities arrived to the scene of the crime. Witnesses stated that the attackers were hurling bottles at them as they were entering their car to flee the scene so they would not be able to write down the license plate. One of bottles was aimed at a pregnant woman; fortunately, no one else was injured at the end of the assault. Adding insult to injury, Sacramento police are still contemplating whether to consider this as a hate crime.

Nathan Feldman has noted that the American Christian fundamentalists are pitting Slavic immigrants against the LGBT and other minority communities in the surrounding Sacramento area.

Several investigators have warned the Sacramento community for years about the fact that American fundamentalists have been stoking the fires of homophobia in new immigrants from Russian and the Ukraine, in order to use them for political agendas.

A small number of Russian-speaking preachers presiding over huge congregations are allegedly spreading the message that it’s their God given right to kill homosexuals, among other radical interpretations of the Bible. Protests against homosexual events and others have been organized within a number of these churches. Over 80 of these churches exist within the Sacramento area; some have over 5,000 members.

Not all of these churches are intolerant and preach hate, but a small handful of politically and financially-influenced preachers are capable of moving vast numbers of faithful followers. A growing number of these churches are becoming organized along the West Coast of the United States. The result is a growing threat to our safety and freedom. Sadly these congregations are being manipulated and used as foot soldiers to promote complex political and financial agendas that they will never be told about.

Slavic Christian immigrants have been compared to the Calvinist Puritans who settled here in the New World because of their apocalyptic worldview. There are between 80,000 and 100,000 Slavic immigrants coming from the Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and the other southern Soviet republics. Sacramento’s Slavic community is largely evangelical – Baptist and Pentecost.

On the post I did about David Ritcheson, I mentioned that President Bush has vowed to veto the hate crimes bill, – Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (S. 1105). If the bill passes, it would expand the current Federal hate crimes law, which would broaden the federal authority to aid state and local law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes motivated by race, religion, national origin and color, as well as sexual orientation, gender and disability. President Bush stated that his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill because the bill was “unnecessary and constitutionally questionable.” It is not a secret that James Dodson, founder of the conservative lobbying group Focus on the Family, is an adviser to President Bush.

One does have to wonder why people like James Dodson are so strongly against the Hate Crimes bill. Could it be that he might actually be held accountable for their followers who happen to be motivated to take action, such as engage in a violent act? Apparently, because the message James Dobson is telling his listeners is that the bill’s real purpose was “to muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality.”

There are powerful forces and powerful interests that are determined to stand in our way in doing what is morally right. However, we must not let them dissuade us from honoring the memory of Matthew Shepard, David Ritcheson, Satendar Singh, and all those who are victims of a hate crime. We must demand that the hate crimes bill be passed by the Senate and further demand President Bush not to veto the bill!

It is our moral obligation to humanity to take action now. Hatecrimesbill.org has information on how we can get involved.