Associated Press

May 30, 2016

In April 2015, police say, a Marshall University football player saw two men kissing on a West Virginia street, hopped out of the passenger seat of a car, shouted homophobic slurs and attacked the men, punching them in the face.

Those charges against Steward Butler may sound like a textbook hate-crime case. But, a year later, the former running back no longer faces charges of violating the men’s civil rights.

That’s partly because West Virginia, like 19 other states, does not have a hate-crime law that protects people targeted specifically because of their sexual orientation, according to the Human Rights Campaign. And while the U.S. Justice Department is still weighing its options in the case, some observers say it may not fit the federal definition of a hate crime, if only for technical reasons.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Attacking-gays-in-West-Virginia-not-a-hate-crime-7953374.php