What is the point of hate laws?

In the UK, 7000 citizens signed their name to a petition to expand
hate crime laws. They want the laws to punish anyone who commits
violence because someone looks different. The petition responds to the
murder of a young Goth-dressing woman and her boyfriend in a park.

The assailants didn't know the girl. Presumably they attacked her
because she was wearing black lipstick. That's how the argument goes.
The thuggish kids who attacked her should get tripled penalties
because their violence was motivated by her weird looks.

So, it would have been less heinous had she been an upper class,
pearls-wearing babe attacked because she looked rich? What if she'd
been a gorgeous blonde cheerleader and they attacked her because they
weren't getting any? What about robbing someone of an Ipod or
scratching a ****sche because "They can afford it". The list goes on
forever.

It is hideously unjust to label the value of various victims,
stiffening penalties for some murders and not others, for some
assaults and not others, etc. Every violent crime is a tragedy to be
redressed. Endlessly add to the list of special "hate crime" victims,
and someday everybody will be on it. Then we'll be right back where we
started: equal law.

But unjust penalties for violent crimes aren't the greatest danger of
hate crime laws. Their greatest danger is that they criminalize free
speech. They criminalize certain beliefs and animosities--emotions with
which the government has no business meddling. The government has no
more right to say you can't be biased against homo***uals than to say
you can't be biased against professional athletes or workaholics or
overbearing mothers-in-law.

Hate crime laws were created by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith, a Jewish organization committed to demonizing--and yes,
defaming --beliefs and values it opposes. Specifically, the ADL opposes
anti- Israel and anti-homo***ual activism and Christian evangelism.
Hate crime laws were not created primarily to respond to violent crime
(which is, obviously, already illegal). They were created to
marginalize and then criminalize certain kinds of speech and "bias" -
primarily Christian.

http://www.rense.com/general81/sud.htm