The Supreme Court ruled (in a unanimous decision written by Bill Rehnquist of all people) that considering hate as a motive for the purposes of sentence enhancement was Constitutional. Wisconsin v. Mitchell.

While I agree that violent hate crimes are abhorrent, the problem with hate crimes legislation is twofold: First, States need to be careful with the language and implementation of such legislation in order not to deprive defendants of the same Fourteenth Amendment rights such laws were meant to protect.

More important, however, is the need to ensure that so-called hate-crimes laws don't go from sentence-enhancement (where the conduct is already a crime, like assault) to criminalizing hate speech per se, as they have in other countries. That would be just as bad as the DOJ's current assault on Porn.