Gay rights groups pounced on a U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx Wednesday after she called the case behind a hate crimes bill "a hoax."

Foxx's comments came on the House floor during debate over the so-called Matthew Shepard bill, named for a 21-year-old gay man murdered in Wyoming in 1998. Supporters say he was the victim of a hate crime, Jim Morrill reports.

The bill would expand a federal hate crimes law to include acts motivated by sexual orientation.

"The Matthew Shepard bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed," said the Banner Elk Republican. "But we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. The bill was named for him … but it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."

In a statement, Foxx later called her comments "a poor choice of words."

More after the jump.

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The Matthew Shephard Act is back, minus the name.

Rep. Pricey Harrison has again filed a bill that would add age, gender, sexual orientation or disability to the state's hate crimes law.

Currently, North Carolina only outlaws hate crimes based on ethnicity, although attacks motivated by prejudice can still be prosecuted as regular crimes.

After the killing of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in 1998, some North Carolina legislators tried to add sexual orientation to the hate crimes law unsuccessfully.

The new bill is simply titled the "Safer Communities Act" and makes no mention of Shepard, but the Greensboro Democrat said that she was particularly concerned about the high rate of hate crimes against gays and lesbians.

She said she understood the argument that there shouldn't be a special law against hate crimes, but as long as there is it should be complete.

"It's our feeling that if we have a hate crimes law, we ought to be covering all of the hate crimes," she said.

Previous versions of the bill have not made it out of committee, but Harrison said she was optimistic since Congress may take similar action this year.

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler is the freshman most likely to vote against his own party.

According to a vote analysis by CQPolitics.com, the Waynesville Democrat voted with his party on highly partisan bills just 82.9 percent of the time — the lowest among first-year representatives and fourth lowest overall.

Shuler, who takes conservative positions on some social issues, voted against the bills to promote embryonic stem cell research and to classify certain violent offenses as "hate crimes." He also voted against a defeated bill, backed by 169 Democrats and two Republicans, that called for the full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 180 days. 

House Democrats, by contrast, averaged a 96 percent party unity score overall, leading to criticism by Republicans that they are a "rubber stamp" for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.