WASHINGTON – U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law a defense-spending bill that contains provisions as eagerly anticipated by the LGBT community as they were vociferously contested by religious conservatives. The $680 billion bill not only expands war efforts and kills some costly weapons projects, but also updates federal hate-crimes law to include violence based on sexual orientation.“This is a landmark step in eliminating the kind of hate-motivated violence that has taken the lives of so many in our community,” Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation President Jarrett Barrios said in a prepared statement.

Although reportedly Obama did not consider the bill a fiscal victory, the law has been hailed as a long-overdue update to civil-rights measures that have not seen significant revision since the original legislation passed during the 1970s in response to the assassination of black civil-rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Despite strenuous protests from many Republicans, the must-pass defense bill added gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability to ethnicity, nationality and religious affiliation as motivations that may subject perpetrators of violent crime to enhanced sentencing.

Named for slain gay college student Matthew Shepard, the new hate-crimes legislation was a priority of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [D-Mass.]. Many of the provisions have been circulating in Washington since Shepard’s murder in Wyoming 11 years ago. During the signing ceremony, Obama told those assembled the hate-crimes portion of the law guarantees Americans protections from violence based on “what they look like, who they love, how they pray or why they are.”

Social and religious conservatives opposed the hate-crimes provisions with the argument the law creates a special class of victims and may lead to prosecution of religious leaders who speak out against homosexuality.