Tulsa - Right now, an attack on a person based on their sexual orientation is not considered a hate crime in Oklahoma. But, some local activists want to change that.

It comes after a man says he was brutally attacked by a man and two women Sunday night near 13th and Rockford. He was beaten and stabbed while walking in the neighborhood, reportedly because he is gay.

Brandon Patrick says it will be about a week before he gets the stitches out of the cut in his knee, and the staples out of the gashes in his head.

"Like right here I got just slashed with a kitchen knife, slashed up, blood just rushing down the side of my face," he says.

As he recovers, the 23-year-old says he's getting positive feedback from people who heard about him being beaten. He like many others didn't realize that attacks like his are not covered by current hate crime laws.

"Until something actually happens to you, you don't do a lot of research on things like that," he says.

But there are others that do the research. People like Toby Jenkins, President of Oklahomans for Equality, who is working to update the current federal hate crime laws.

"What it will do is expand that to sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and national origin," Jenkins says.

He says those new items passed overwhelmingly in the House, and the legislation is on the way to the Senate. Jenkins says attacks against gays happen periodically in Oklahoma and stronger hate crime laws might change that.

"What it does is sends a message that we are a civil society and that minorities and people who are different than the general population cannot be targeted as victims because they're a different religion, or race or different sexual orientation."

Backers of the changes in the current hate crime laws say they expect it to get out of the Senate quickly, in about four months, and when it's passed by the Senate, President Obama says he will sign it into law.

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