The point of hate speech / hate crime laws isn't that crimes motivated by discrimination are worse. It's that they affect the whole group. If I kill you because I want your money, then you and your friends and family suffer the consequences. If I kill you because you're gay, Christian, black, Jewish, female, or whatever, then <i>in addition to the effects on you and your friends and family</i> everyone else who's part of the same group feels just that bit more afraid and that bit less able to be themselves; and everyone else who hates that same group gets just that bit more inspiration to go out and do likewise.<p>Unless you give this <i>zero</i> weight and think every reasonable person should do otherwise, then I do not think you have any excuse for saying that approving of hate-crime laws means being "against freedom of speech".<p>(Unless by "you are against freedom of speech" you mean "you think that there might be other considerations that sometimes justify limiting freedom of speech". In which case every reasonable person is "against" just about everything.)<p>There is no hate-crime legislation making it extra-bad to kill geeks because there aren't a bunch of malefactors out there killing geeks. It's arguable that hate-crime laws should be written in a more general way, instead of calling out particular discriminated-against groups, but if you'd accept <i>that</i> then congratulations, you're "against freedom of speech" in your own terms.