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Liberals promote hate crime legislation to legitimize certain lifestyles by declaring them to be protected by law, and to chill [[free speech]] that criticizes those lifestyles. Their reasoning is that if someone makes hateful statements and later commits a crime targeting a member of the group that was discussed, then the person would be subject to a higher penalty than if he had kept his thoughts unvoiced. So, criminals will feel less free to speak their minds. However, people who are sufficiently filled with hate to engage in violence against the target of their hate, are probably not going to have their speech curtailed in response to such legislation.

Opponents charge that hate crime and hate speech rules amount to an erosion of [[First Amendment]] guarantees of freedom of religion, [[free speech]], and freedom of press. In particular, they object to rules or laws which equate condemnation of sin with prejudice. Proponents claim that the law should consider that hate crime harm society as a whole more than just random violence, thereby justifying a higher penalty.

Hate crime legislation imposes additional punishment for crimes held to be motivated by such "prejudice"without making "hate speech" a separate crime.

Hate Some critics claim that hate crime legislation is a stepping stone for a lifestyle to become protected under anti-discrimination laws. The [[gay rights]] movement currently attempts to equate racism and [[anti-Semitism]] with the condemnation of homosexual lifestyle. They claim that, like race, sexual orientation is 100% inherited and immutable but there are studies that question this claim [citation needed].  Nonetheless However, many states have enacted hate crime statutes without then taking the strategy separate step of activists is to insist that condemnation of sin is a type of "prejudice" equivalent to a civil rights violation. They want people of conscience, who already condemn antisemitism and racism, to regard any critique of homosexuality as an expression of "hate".  There is a misinterpretation of a sermon by Jesus, who told people not to "hate" their enemies used in favor of the argument. What hate crimes legislation ignores is that Jesus never hesitated to condemn sin and frequently criticized wrongdoersamending anti-discrimination laws.

Additionally, some have argued that hate crimes crime laws should be applied in extreme cases, but that existing legislation is far too broad. For instance, they argue that merely telling a homosexual that he will go to [[hell]] if he does not repent should not be a "hate crime", but that actually killing that person (which in the opinion of the murderer, would send them to hell) should be classified as a "hate crime". This is generally seen as a more moderately conservative to centrist view on the issue, and is the approach taken in the hate crime laws that have been enacted.