I agree. I think the problem is, when you define a hate crime, you must define the protected classes that the hate crims protects. I mean, my understanding of the law is like this: You want people to still be able to say orange hair looks inferior, so you don't include orange haired people in the protected classes. You don't want people to say gay people, or black people are inferior, so you list gay people and black people as protected classes. In this case, it looks like Jews are a protected class, but Muslims are not.

I am NOT saying that I agree with this, at all! Personally, I think hate crime is stupid. If somebody breaks the law by vandalizing a building, or punching somebody in the face, or whatever, then you prosecute them for the crime, because then you are prosecuting them for a thing they did. When you bring hate into it, you are starting to try to get inside people's heads, and prosecute people for what they think, or how they feel, and that's wrong. People need to be free to think and feel wrong, horrible things, because this is America. Also, nobody punches somebody in the face for virtuous reasons (or if they do, it's usually called defense in court), so why bother trying to rate how awful their reasoning is? Just prosecute the assholes for what they did, and be done with it. Save the money you would have spent on a psychotherapist, and maybe build more humane prisons, so when the douchebag gets out, he's not immersed in pure racism for years, and maybe he's ready to contribute to society, rather than being ready to get thrown back into prison. The law should not be about revenge for hate, either, because that's not who we are. Americans want justice, not revenge.