The House passed new hate crimes legislation last week. The bill extends “hate crime” status to crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation and provides grants for local law enforcement to investigate such crimes. The bill brings up many difficult legal questions that the pundits are plodding through.

The LA Times believes the House’s hate crimes legislation accomplishes two important goals: “It expands a key definition of hate crimes to include acts of violence inspired by a victim's sexual orientation, and it provides federal assistance to local and state law enforcement agencies seeking to prevent and prosecute hate crimes. Both are worthy refinements of existing federal law.”

George Will finds the hate crimes legislation one step down a slippery slope. What’s next, he asks, “People who wear fur or eat meat? Some writings by the killer at Virginia Tech expressed hatred of the rich, but they are not a category protected in this year's hate-crime legislation. Perhaps in next year's.”

Michael Dorf looks at the problem of “symbolic” law in the context of the recent hate crimes legislation. He concludes that “even if symbolism is sometimes a legitimate basis for legislation, too frequent reliance on symbolism risks opening the door---if only as a matter of politics---to symbolic legislation of the more dangerous sort.”

Robert McHenry wonders why we need new hate crimes legislation when most of the acts covered in the bill are already illegal. It’s our intentions that are on trial. McHenry asks, “how far are we along the road to defining thought crimes and punishing thought criminals?”