All Crimes are Hate Crimes - Heard that one before too, eh? Basically, pending hate crimes legislation provides "sentencing enhancement" for crimes that target victims based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, or allocates extra prosecutorial resources to such crimes. The least sophisticated argument against such law invokes accusations of "thought police." This falacious slogan sounds good on a bumper sticker but ignores the fact that an act of violence to person or property must be associated with the "thought" in question. Criminal law has always concerned itself with mental state of the perpetrator. Thus a killer may be convicted only of second-degree murder, because her actions were made in the heat of passion, rather than with malice aforethought. Also, the insanity defense is premised on an inability to form the necessary intent or to know right from wrong. Moreover, a criminal's character, intent and a variety of other subjective factors are universally applied in the sentencing stage of a conviction. Anti-gay hate crime law opponents don't really think "bad guys" shouldn't be punished more, they just balk at the idea that they could be those bad guys. (My advice: Just don't get physical in your homophobia.)

One of the more principled arguments against hate crimes legislation, on the other hand, is that it biases our criminal law in favor of certain "privileged" groups. Equal treatment before the law is a hard concept to argue with. Nevertheless, criminal law commonly takes into account the effects of a criminal act in meting out appropriate punishment. An act that terrorizes a community may therefore provoke a stronger reaction that one that has a more confined, personal effect. When a wide population views themselves as victims of a crime, especially where such was the intent of the perpetrator, I see no reason why the penalty cannot be harsher. Furthermore, by creating mandatory sentencing enhancements, implementation of the law becomes more uniform, with less room for prosecutorial or judicial discretion. Historically, this has been a problem as homophobic prosecutors and judges have given unequal treatment to gay victims. It seems to me this is especially important with respect to minor criminal acts. Graffiti that reads "Beat Tech!" is different from graffiti that says "Kill all faggots!" The same is true for a car vandal who only picks on vehicles with pride stickers. Not all small-town judges see it that way.

Finally, the law is intended to be instructive as well as punitive. Even the passage of hate crimes legislation protective of gays, with nothing more, sends a powerful message to the overall community that it's not alright to bash gays. As such, it's an important corrective to a societal behavior that has, gladly, begun to fall out of favor.