LGBTQ persons were not the only affected group of citizens as lawmakers also voted to remove protections for ethnicity and religious beliefs as well. The lower house is expected to vote on the amended penal code that would eliminate sexual orientation, gender identity and expression as soon as this week in a special session called by the island's Republican Governor Luis Fortuño.

In a press conference Sunday, lawmakers Representative Héctor Ferrer and Senator Eduardo Bhatia joined with LGBTq Equality Rights and activists criticizing the amendment to the penal code's hate crimes provisions:

"To eliminate these groups as protected categories is to invite the commission of hate crimes in Puerto Rico," said Ferrer, as Vocero reported on Dec. 4 "It is a setback in the country’s public policy."

"In an advanced society, this is dangerous for society," added Bhatia, as Primera Hora reported.

Edge Media's National News Editor, Washington D. C.-based Michael K. Lavers, reported Monday that political affiliation, age and disability would remain part of the revised hate crimes statute if legislators approve the new penal code and if Fortuño signs it into law.

Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force accused both Senate President Thomas Rivera-Schatz and Fortuño of homophobia.

"Basically they took out the communities hardest hit by hate crimes in Puerto Rico out of the hate crimes statute," Serrano told EDGE, referring to both LGBTs and Dominicans who work on the island who continue to suffer disproportionate rates of hate and bias-motivated violence on the island. "It’s an outrage and now we’re calling upon the House to restore this to where it should be."

Nearly two dozen LGBT Puerto Ricans have been murdered on the island since late 2009 in what Serrano and other activists have repeatedly described as an epidemic of anti-LGBT violence. These include gay teenager Jorge Steven López Mercado, who was stabbed to death before his decapitated, dismembered and partially burned body was dumped alongside a remote roadside near Cayey in Nov. 2009. Three LGBT Puerto Ricans-Alejandro Torres Torres, Karlota Gómez Sánchez and Ramón "Moncho" Salgado-were found dead within a 72-hour period in June.

The Justice Department cited in inadequate response to hate crimes as among the Puerto Rico Police Department’s numerous deficiencies in a damning report it released in September. The Puerto Rico Department of Justice’s own reports indicate that prosecutors have yet to convict anyone of a bias-motive crime on the island.

[...]

"Puerto Rico’s recent rash of hate crimes against the LGBT community is a sad reminder of why hate crimes laws are needed," added Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Paul Guequierre. "Removing sexual orientation and gender identity from the law would set Puerto Rico back and endanger LGBT people in the commonwealth."

Puerto Rico is an U.S. territory. Islanders are residents of the United States, and are able to travel freely to the mainland, but do not vote in national elections.

Ricky Martin

Pop-star Ricky Martin has been publicly criticized by religious leaders in his native Puerto Rico for setting a bad example for his children by openly discussing his homosexuality.

Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez of San Juan told Primera Hora last week:

“Personally, I admire Ricky for the great artistic gifts the Lord has endowed him, but please, for the love of his children, for whom I imagine he wants the best, try to set an example to our youth of the great values we all share, besides sex.”

“[The Roman Catholic church] does not reject the homosexual [but] their immoral actions and behaviors, and trying to promote homosexuality or sexual promiscuity among our youth, indeed, is immoral regardless of where it comes from”.

Martin, who announced last year that he his gay, is the father of twin sons, Matteo and Valentino.

Last month, Pastor Wanda Rolon of First Christian Church of La Senada Antigua, and self-described "Apostle," posted a Facebook rant calling Martin a man “who wants to take people to hell! RM is its ambassador.”

Rolon later deleted the post and denied claims she was homophobic.

The criticism coincides with the recent launch of Martin's "Music+Soul+Sex" concert tour.

The announcement was greeted by cheers from activists who complain the government has yet to invoke 2002 legislation establishing harsher penalties for crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Associated Press.

The new government committee involves agencies including the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Juan, police officials and the island's civil rights commission, according to a statement release by the attorney general late Friday.

"With the creation of this committee, we will document the extent of hate crimes," said Attorney General Guillermo Somoza Colombani, who added that the data will help develop policies to attend to the victims.

"I think this is a step in the right direction to start to collect statistics that are vital to curb the crisis of violence against the gay community in Puerto Rico," said Pedro Julio Serrano, a spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and native of Puerto Rico.

Serrano said 25 slayings of gay and transgender people in the past eight years may have been motivated by bias — including the decapitation in November of gay teen Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, whose killing inspired vigils as far away as New York and Chicago.

Mercado (left) was murdered by Matos on November 12, 2009

Juan José Martínez Matos, who had been scheduled to go on trial Monday for the murder of Jorge Steven López Mercado, confessed to the crime during a hearing in Caguas, and told the court he understood the consequences of his actions, according to a report in Edge.

Prosecutors contend Martinez stabbed Lopez to death before he decapitated, dismembered and partially burned his body before dumping it along a remote roadside near Cayey on Nov. 12, 2009. The gay teenager’s murder sent shockwaves across Puerto Rico and around the world.

Matos, 26, a married father of four, confessed he was cruising the “red light” district of Caguas, a city south of San Juan, looking for women and picked up 19-year-old Mercado thinking he was a woman, a police report said. Matos allegedly went into a rage when he discovered that Lopez was a man.

The case had gained national attention because activists demanded that U.S. authorities prosecute it as a hate crime.

Thousands of people in San Juan, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities around the United States held vigils, marches and other events in the days following López’s death.

Nuevo Dia reported William Ramírez, executive director of the ACLU and of the University of Puerto Rico’s Legal Clinic, pointed out to Puerto Rico Department of Justice Secretary Antonio Sagardía the Commonwealth has a history of "not investigating hate crimes cases" like the one he said to which Juan A. Martínez Matos reportedly has confessed.

"The ACLU has tried to get the government to accept its responsibility to investigate cases... that are hate crimes, particularly that of young Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado," said ACLU director William Ramírez.

"We should not be satisfied with the possibility the federal government will do what our government is not interested in doing; which is to protect every citizen," he said.

Cries are also coming from around the country against investigator Angel Rodriguez Colon, who said Mercado contributed to his own death simply because he was gay.

Mercado was murdered in Puerto Rico on Nov. 13, his body found decapitated, dismembered and partially burned in a wooded area near Cayey. on Friday, Nov. 13.

Juan A. Martinez Matos was arrested a few days later.

Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, which means federal agencies have jurisdiction. Matos could be charged with a hate crime under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in October.

According to a translation provided by the blogger Blabbeando, Myriam Mercado recalls the moment an emotionally upset Steven told her he was gay.

“Aw, son ... if I loved you, now I will love you more,” she said.

Mercado’s body was found decapitated, dismembered and partially burned in a wooded area near Cayey on Friday, Nov. 13.

Juan A. Martinez Matos was arrested a few days later, and will be charged with first-degree murder and four other counts, according to the prosecutor.

Michael Lavers at Edge reports more on the funeral.

Juan A. Martinez Matos, 26, a married father of four (pictured), confessed he was cruising the "red light" district of Caguas, a city south of San Juan, looking for women and picked up 19-year-old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado thinking he was a woman, a police report said.

When the two went into a house "the suspect (allegedly) found out that Lopez was a man, after Lopez made sexual advances, and as a result of the rage, Matos did what he did," the report quoted in the newspaper El Nuevo Dia said.

Lopez Mercado's dismembered, beheaded and burned body was found Friday on a road in Cayey, Puerto Rico, near Caguas.

A gay panic defense argues a person acted in a state of violent temporary insanity.

The U.S. attorney's office weighed the possibility of charging Martinez Matos under a new federal hate crimes law, spokeswoman Lymarie Llovet told CNN.

A vigil is to be held Sunday in Oakland, Calif., where Lopez Mercado lived and was active in the gay community.

More from United Press International.

Juan A. Martinez Matos was arrested late Monday in connection with the slaying of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado (pictured), whose decapitated, dismembered and partially burned body was found Friday afternoon on a road in central Puerto Rico.

In addition to murder, Martinez Matos is expected to be charged with three weapons violations and one count of hiding evidence.

Prosecutors are weighing whether to recommend that Martinez Matos be charged under federal hate crimes law.

"The brutality of the slaying and the fact that he was openly gay leads us to believe it was very possibly a hate crime," said Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, which means federal agencies have jurisdiction.

Last month, President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which extends federal protection to illegal acts motivated by a person's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

If Martinez Matos is charged under the hate crimes provision, it is believed it would be the first such case under the latest addition to the law.

Full story at CNN.

Jorge Steven López Mercado (pictured) was found decapitated, dismembered and partially burned Friday in a wooded area near Cayey on the island of Puerto Rico.

"The brutality of the slaying and the fact that he was openly gay leads us to believe it was very possibly a hate crime," said Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Authorities are investigating whether the killing involved sex, Guayama police Commander Hector Agosto Rodriguez told WLII-TV.

Guayama prosecutor Jose Bermudez identified the suspect as John A. Martinez, 26.

Martinez was scheduled to attend a court hearing Tuesday night at which charges would be lodged, said Luis Bernier, a spokesman for the Guayama police district, which has jurisdiction in the case.

The U.S. attorney's office, in consultation with local officials and other agencies, would determine if the slaying was a hate crime, which is a federal offense.

Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, which means federal agencies have jurisdiction.

Previous story here.

Jorge Steven López Mercado’s body was found decapitated, dismembered and partially burned in a wooded area near Cayey on Friday, Nov. 13. His friends became concerned after he failed to meet them at a popular gay club in the San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood.

Investigator Angel Rodriguez’s assertion López, 19, somehow caused his own death sparked widespread outrage and anger among Puerto Rican activists.

"When these type of people get into this and go out into the streets like this, they know this can happen to them," Rodriguez said a statement local media outlets broadcast and reported.

Gay groups are planning protests and acts of remembrance for the student, who was said to be studying fashion.

According to a CNN iReport by Christopher Pagan, Lopez Mercado was "well-known" and "very loved" in Puerto Rico's gay community.

Members of the U.S. gay community are asking authorities to investigate whether the slaying was a hate crime because of the victim's sexual orientation, said Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.