"it should be punished in the same way no matter the classification of the victim" Hate crime legislation does not protect people based on "the classification

"it should be punished in the same way no matter the classification of the victim" Hate crime legislation does not protect people based on "the classification of the victim". It protects everyone equally. Maybe you missed it, but David Neiwert pointed this out in one of the quotes I pasted above.[1] None of these laws specify the race or ethnicity or religion of the victims -- rather, they are focused solely on the motivations of the perpetrator. A person need not be actually gay to be the victim of a gay-bashing hate crime; he need only have been perceived as gay by someone who specifically set out to assault homosexuals. This is only logical, since the terroristic motivation of the assault is present in either case. Moreover, the laws protect everyone equally. Majority whites are victims of bias crimes too, and every year there are over a thousand prosecutions for such cases. (Indeed, the definitive Supreme Court case, Wisconsin v. Mitchell, involved a black man accused of fomenting a hate crime against a couple of white teens.) Check the FBI statistics for yourself. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5622339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5622339