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State and federal laws vary as to which victim groups are "protected." D.C.'s very broad law even includes political affiliation. No bashing Republicans? Excluded victim groups clamor to be included in hate crime laws. Women's groups argue that much male violence against them is driven, at least partly, by women-hating prejudice. But other victim groups object, worried that sex crimes would overwhelm other hate crimes. If every crime is a hate crime, a separate hate category is meaningless. So hate crime law supporters argue that some prejudices are more abhorrent than others - and some victims are more important than others.

All decent Americans abhorred the monstrously brutal dragging murder of black, disabled James Byrd Jr., 49, on June 7 in Jasper, Texas, and the pistol-whip torture killing of University of Wyoming gay student Matthew Shepard, 21, on Oct. 7 in Laramie. The Shepard killing spurred demands for tougher federal hate crime laws to include gays. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., is one of the chief sponsors of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1998. If convicted, the accused killers of James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard deserve execution. But there is no indication that either state will fail to prosecute the accused to the fullest extent of the law. Texas is no slouch at executing murderers. We have no lack of homicide and civil rights statutes to convict heinous criminals. Why then are special hate crimes needed? The state can't execute a hate criminal twice.

Constitutional scholars are troubled by hate crime laws for several reasons. If the underlying conduct is already recognized and punished as a crime, isn't extra punishment imposed for the prejudice or beliefs? And if so, doesn't that violate First Amendment rights - however odious the beliefs may be?

New York legal scholars James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter, in Hate Crimes: Criminal Law & Identity Politics (1998), showed how gullible newspeople uncritically accept a U.S. hate crimes "epidemic." Hate crime reports can include anything from graffiti to homicide. Most "hate crimes" are committed by teen-agers, not organized groups. Any bias murder is one too many, but in 1994, the FBI reported 13 hate crime murders. In a nation of 250 million, is this an "epidemic"?

Victim groups and politicians want hate crime laws to "send a message" to bigots. Some scholars believe such "symbolic" laws enshrining group rights actually aggravate bigots' views of themselves as victims of special preferences for blacks, women, gays, whatever. In New York, hate crime hoaxes such as the Tawana Brawley case triggered retaliatory crimes against whites. Near riots have broken out over whether police classify a crime as a "hate crime." Jurors are pressured to see trials more as group conflicts demanding loyalty to their racial, religious, sexual or ethnic group. This balkanizing of society is dangerous.

The U.S. Supreme Court has sent mixed opinions on hate crimes in R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992) and Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993). One message is clear: Hate-crime laws elevate group rights above individual rights. Don't mess with these victim groups. But the genius of the U.S. Constitution has been its guarantee of individual rights. The Constitutional ideal of every citizen standing equal before the law promotes solidarity: An attack on any citizen's rights is an attack on us all.

In December 1996, when vandals in the Philadelphia suburb of Newtown attacked a Jewish home and smashed a menorah, 25 nearby Christian homeowners swiftly installed menorahs in their windows; the vandals never returned. Voluntary shows of support can be more powerful than the best-intentioned hate-crime laws.