Criminal science certainly benefits from understanding motives, but I'm not sure we benefit by legislating accordingly. The fact of the matter is that virtually all murders are inspired by hatred, the ones that aren't are arguably more despicable, like killing someone deliberatly with premeditation for money, pleasure, etc. Where irrational hatred is concerned, I'm not sure it really matters what the classification is, it almost seems like deciding to make different punishment criteria for the weapon used, 50 years for a gun but 52 for a lead pipe and 48 for a knife.

Now, insofar as it makes the crime automatically a federal offense, that let's the FBI get involved, and back in the day that made sure corrupt or biased local law enforcement couldn't half-arse an investigation on a dead black man, there certainly was a lot of logic behind it at the time. I'm not sure it fits in too well anymore. I also want to remind everyone that hating people, for whatever reason, is totally legal. Getting together in little groups to talk about how much you hate those f'ing [insert random perjorative here] is legal. If me and some friends hate blondes and beat one to death, that is surely a hate crime as much as the others, if someone punches a smoker bellowing "I hate you f#$%ing smokers!" just committed a hate crime, and we can't say "Well, that's different, they chose to be a smoker" because religion already sets the precedent that it doesn't have to be something your born to like race.

It always comes back to the assumption that there is a difference in the type of 'hate' involved, "I hate him" vs. "I hate them". So realistically it's a hate crime if any plural form of hatred was involved? Can the categories then go on to not just include "I hate jews, blacks, queers..." to "I hate child molesters." Is that different because they broke the law? What then about "I hate pot smokers". I know some of these examples are absurd, but that's the point, and yet there certainly are hate-leaning attitudes out there that get overlooked, "I hate people who eat meat, wear leather, etc" is prevalent enough. Certianly throwing red paint on someone wearing fur seems a hate crime to me, by the standards already in place.