Nenya Kanadka

One thing it helps with is getting justice after the fact--if you have a federal law, it's easier to insist that this case where the frat boys beat up a gay kid gets looked into, when maybe the local police didn't think it was all that important, because, heh heh, it was a gay kid after all, wasn't it? Kind of like the use of making federal civil rights laws about racial discrimination, instead of leaving it to states & cities. The big thing about this particular law is that it's federal.

Some people have said they think hate crimes laws criminalize thought--you get a harsher penalty if you beat the guy up because he was black or gay than if you beat him up just because you wanted his money. But really, you're considering the exact same thing in a hate-crimes case as you are in any other case: intent. You get a harsher penalty if you intentionally beat the guy to death, having planned it ahead of time, than if you were robbing his house and lashed out at him with something heavy when he caught you. It's about saying that as a society we think it's very bad to kill or beat someone, and it's even worse if you did it because they were just different from you.

That's my take anyway. (And I'm all, yay, people are commenting on my post, too, lol.)