"Scotland trains 60 policemen to fight LGBT hate crime"

lifesitenews.com

"Scottish police and homosexual advocacy groups are combining to train 60 officers as LGBT-hate crime specialists in an apparent effort to increase the number of hate crimes reported.

The move has raised concerns over the possible criminalization of any criticism of homosexuality. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality told LifeSiteNews, 'Everyone is against hate and violence against homosexuals or anybody else. But are they setting up a politically correct hierarchy of victims with homosexuals at the top?'

According to the Equality Network, which will be training LGBT liaison officers for the Scottish police, there were 841 'sexual orientation aggravate crimes' in 2015 and 21 'transphobic' crimes. The press release adds, 'there is said to be evidence of significant under-reporting.'

In evidence, the charity reports on a survey of LGBT Scots indicating that half had seen or been victims of 'prejudice or discrimination' within the past month, as had 97 % in the past year, though neither 'prejudice' nor 'discrimination' are as yet crimes.

Fergus McMillan, chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland, admitted that the training of police was an effort to raise crime numbers. 'We are currently working with a range of partners, including Equality Network, to increase the reporting of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate crimes and incidents and improve the support available to those targeted.'

He added that the majority of homophobic crimes did not get reported, explaining, 'Around half of all LGBT respondents would not feel confident reporting a crime to the police.'"