If the president plans to sign a massive defense spending bill, Bush will have to make a new hate-crimes bill the law of the land, as well — the Senate added the hate-crimes measure as an amendment today.

The Senate attached hate crimes legislation to a must-pass Pentagon spending bill Thursday, but opponents predicted it ultimately would fail.

“The president is not going to agree to this social legislation on the defense authorization bill,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “This bill will get vetoed.”

Well, we’ll see. The White House opposes the hate-crimes bill because it extends new protections to gay people, but would Bush reject funding the military just to prevent these protections from becoming law? Graham’s convinced he’d rather veto the whole package; I’m not convinced. Rejecting funding for the Pentagon during a war just to limit safeguards for gays seems a little over the top, even by Republican standards.

The GOP, of course, filibustered the proposed amendment, but supporters just barely shut it down, 60 to 39. Nine Republicans — Warner (VA), Lugar (IN), Collins (ME), Snowe (ME), Voinovich (OH), Specter (PA), Coleman (MN), Gregg (NH), and Smith (OR) — most of whom are up for re-election next year, broke party ranks and voted to allow the measure to move forward. From there, it was added to the defense spending bill on a voice vote. Every Dem and both independents (Sanders and Lieberman) supported the measure. McCain did not vote.

Most of the debate sidestepped whether to extend protections to gays, and instead focused on whether the hate-crimes bill was germane to the Pentagon budget.

Indeed, even James Dobson’s Focus on the Family tried to avoid sounding homophobic, emphasizing instead that the hate-crimes bill should be considered as a stand-alone measure.

But Dems saw an opportunity to make landmark progress, and they took it, even if that meant a strained argument connecting the two seemingly disparate areas of policy.

Writing violent attacks on gays into federal hate crime laws is an appropriate add-on to legislation funding the war, Democrats argued, because both initiatives are aimed at combating terrorist acts.

“The defense authorization is about dealing with the challenges of terrorism overseas… This (bill) is about terrorism in our neighborhood,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, the chief Democratic sponsor. “We want to fight terrorism here at home with all of our weapons.”

Agreed the Republican co-sponsor, Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith: “We cannot fight terror abroad and accept terror at home.”

The argument won out, and with House support, will be sent to the White House. Stay tuned.