The entire idea of a hate crime is absurd. As opposed to what, a love crime?
Maybe there really are love crimes. It's virtually certain that more gays have died because people were tolerant of their lifestyle than because of so-called gay bashing. How many gays have died of AIDS? How many would have died if homsexuality were still in the closet, and gays had to be more cautious about finding sex partners?
For every Matthew Sheppard, there are probably a few thousand gays who are dead because of "tolerance".
These laws are just another PC effort to control our thoughts and intimidate people into having the proper attitude as defined by the left.
Who gets included in these hate crime laws? Activist groups that have the ideological clout to be included.
How about prosecuting people who mug rich people for some form of class envy hate?
These laws are ridiculous. You suggest that we should enforce them equally, which is a problem because the very existence of these laws is an inequity against those groups not included in the law to begin with. But do you really think it's possible in the current PC atmosphere to equally enforce these laws? Good luck!
As for the slippery slope, it may take longer for free speech to be abridged here, but the intimidation is already beginning. Remember when Pryor was grilled by the Senate Democrats and denied a judgeship because he had said he wouldn't take his kids to DisneyWorld on "gay day"?
Don't think it can't happen here!