Hate crime enhancements are unjust in the United States.

Hate crime legislation allows enhanced penalties for criminals who have chosen their victim based on their hatred for the particular group their victim belongs to. Usually the group is a traditionally disadvantaged minority group. Hate crime legislation does not make it illegal to hate people. This is an important distinction. The laws do not infringe upon the free speech of law abiding citizens. Hate crime laws only apply when a crime has been committed and it can be determined that the primary motive for committing the crime (or for choosing the victim) was because the victim belonged to a group that the criminal has immense hatred for. Take homosexuality for an example. Hate crime laws don't restrict religious speech on homosexuality. Hate crime laws only target hate driven violence. There is nothing in it that prevents preachers from opposing homosexuality vehemently from the pulpit. As long as a preacher does not incite violence against homosexuals, they can oppose homosexuality as vocally and aggressively as they like. We already live in a society that punishes the same crimes differently. Criminal A, B, and C, may each be technically guilty of the same crime (let's say murder for example.), but criminal A gets the death penalty, Criminal B gets life without parole, and criminal C gets 20-40 years with parole. Why? Because we factor motive into the sentence. We also factor in such issues as how abhorrent, grievous, and brutal the crime was. In short, there are degrees of social revulsion that are taken into account when sentencing criminals for their crimes. As a society that believes in, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," in, "liberty and justice for all," because, "all men are created equal," don't we find it more abhorrent, grievous, and brutal when victims are selected because they are viewed as unequal? Aren't we more repulsed when the criminal espouses views that fly in the face of our common societal values of liberty and equality? Some of you may wonder, "But isn't all crime hate based? You must hate that person if you're committing a crime against them." Not exactly. Most victims are chosen out of convenience, opportunity, and circumstance. Alternately, victims chosen out of emotional passion when the criminal knows the victim well-this is not quite the same thing as hate. Only the rare criminal actively seeks to attack people because they belong to a group he or she hates. When one takes the view that punishment is predicated on not two, but three factors- intent, harm and dangerousness-one significantly strengthens the need for penalty enhancement based on bias-motivated crime. In the case of the offender using a dangerous weapon during an assault, society is justifiably concerned upon release the offender may pose a greater threat to a greater amount of people. After all, they have already demonstrated a willingness to hurt others through the use of dangerous weapons that can be used to inflict harm upon a greater number of individuals in the future. Put simply, a person with a closed fist may hurt someone bad, but a person willing to commit a crime with a gun or know for that matter poses a potentionally greater threat to a greater amount of people. In Wisconsin VS. Mitchell, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously found that, "bias motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest. The states desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate explanation for its penalty enhancement provision over an above mere disagreement with offenders beliefs or biases. It is but reasonable that, among crimes of different natures, those should be most severely punished which are most destructive of the public safety and happiness. It is said that when the core of a person's identity is attacked, the degradation and dehumanization is especially severe, and additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to result. Society then, in turn can suffer from the disempowerment of a group of people. The basic concept that we've been taught to accept about terrorists is that they hate our way of life, so they try to interrupt it, with violence. If someone hates your way of life because you're black, or hates a Jewish person's way of life because they are Jewish, or hates someone's way of life because they are bisexual; and they commit violent or illegal acts to interrupt that, that should be considered a form of terrorism. The object of any hate crime is to intimidate through the use of terror, and there is no difference in the substance of the action. A hate crime is certainly terrorism in a close, vehement, personal way. It may be arduous to prove intent, but U.S Sentencing Guidelines set a higher bar in proving intent, so the motive behind a hate crime has to be obvious to a unanimous jury. This is no different from any other intent finding verdict—which is why we are able to distinguish murder one from manslaughter. We recognize that, when assigning culpability and punishment intent matters a great deal. Without it the moral grounding of the law would dissipate, and the U.S Legal System, able to assign punishments only based on actions and results, would effectively collapse. The real and only question we should be asking is, "Do we as a society find it more abhorrent, repulsive, and deserving of greater punishment when criminals choose their victims or choose to commit crimes because they hate all people who are member of a certain group?" If you individually do find this is your position, I ask you to vote for hate crime legislation.