PORTLAND (AP) – Attacks on people based on their racial or sexual orientation continue to make up the vast majority of the hate crimes in Maine, according to recent statistics from the Attorney General’s Office.

Law enforcement agencies around Maine referred 107 bias attacks or threats to the state in 2004. Of those, 59 were racially based and 35 were based on perceived sexual orientation. The state also received reports of crimes based on religion, nationality, gender, mental disability and reproductive rights.

“Racial issues, racial tensions dominate year after year,” said Thom Harnett, assistant attorney general for civil rights education and enforcement. He said the report is consistent with data gathered five years ago.

Maine law does not recognize the term “hate crime,” though it is commonly used to describe violations of the state Civil Rights Act, which protects people from threats “motivated by reason of race, color, religion, sex, ancestry, national origin, physical or mental disability or sexual orientation.”

In Maine, violence against gay people has been illegal, but Gov. John Baldacci only recently signed a law making it illegal to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation in areas such as housing, employment and credit.

Of the 107 complaints that merited action last year, the Attorney General’s office received 16 court orders barring defendants from harming the victim.

Recent orders were issued against two Winthrop High School girls who spray-painted swastikas near the home of a Jewish classmate, a Bath man who threw a punch at a black woman and insulted her with racial slurs, and a South Portland man who assaulted a stranger outside a bar that is popular among gay people.

It is difficult to compare Maine’s statistics with others states because records differ from state to state, said Stephen Wessler of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Hate Violence at the University of Southern Maine.

Wessler says many states also do not recognize crimes against people based on sexual orientation as a bias crime.

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