But, once we make the punishment depend on motivation, we have entered never-never land, where opposing shrinks tell opposing stories to bewildered jurors, taking up lots of time in already overcrowded courts. When new laws are passed, there is seldom even a consideration of whether to hire more police and more judges, much less build more courtrooms and more prisons. Apparently it is OK just to spread the existing resources thinner. The Fourteenth Amendment provides for equal rights and equal protection of the laws. If you want more than that, then you are no longer talking about rights, but about special privileges.
Special privileges are poisonous to a whole society.
Often those who claim these privileges become victims of the backlash. Even when the privileges are not put into the law but consist only of special indulgences for rotten behavior that would not be tolerated by other members of the society, this too is poisonous in itself, as well as breeding inevitable backlashes. Homosexuals are not unique in trying to cash in victimhood for privileges, if only the privilege of insulting other people with impunity. But neither they nor anyone else should be allowed to get away with this.