The reading from 1 Thessalonians this Sunday begins with a prayerful wish: "May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all." If hate crime statistics are any indication, that wish has yet to be fully realized. Reports of hate crimes against gay people and religious groups increased sharply in 2008, according to FBI data released Monday.

The overall number of reported hate crimes increased about 2 percent. These same figures show a nearly 11 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a nearly 9 percent increase in hate crimes based on religion. The largest category, racially motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.

Among all categories of hate crimes, roughly a third take the form of vandalism or property damage. About 30 percent involve intimidation of some kind, and another 30 percent include physical attacks against people.

The FBI does not compare year-to-year trends in hate crimes, saying the number of agencies reporting changes too much. And in fact the bureau cautioned that the increase reported Monday might well be due to more agencies tracking such incidents.

In total there were 7,783 hate crimes reported to the FBI last year, and seven murders were categorized as hate crimes. Half of all hate crimes are motivated by race, according to the FBI. One out of every five is driven by religious bias, and one out of every six is based on sexual orientation bias.

Source: An article by Devlin Barrett for the Associated Press