What Shepard's killers did was vicious and evil, and if reports that they selected him as a victim, in part, because he was gay, turn out to be true, their actions are particularly heinous because it shows that the murder was premeditated. But elevating an emotion -- hate -- to the status of crime, as gay-rights advocates suggest, is wrong.

Hate crimes trivialize real crime. It's like calling O.J. Simpson, who at the very least beat his wife to a pulp, a misogynist. The term hate crimes is a fraud; it ought to be called thought crime. Those who insist on punishing hate actually seek the punishment of thought.

Conservatives have made practical arguments against hate crime. Some point out that every crime perpetuates injustice against its victims, and others rightly argue that Shepard's murderers deserve the death penalty. Columnist John Leo challenges the idea that the anti-gay motives make Shepard's murder more evil.

However, the fallacy of hate-crimes laws is not that they don't work or aren't necessary. The real horror of hate crimes lies in the idea's philosophical implications. Establishing hate as a crime is a severe offense against individual rights, a core philosophy of U.S. jurisprudence.

Consider the case of a gay man in Buffalo named Gary Trzaska. When the 41-year-old white man left a local bar -- one not known as a gay bar -- he allegedly was attacked by three black youths. Trzaska's wallet was stolen, and he was beaten to death.

Trzaska's roommate, George Boos, refuses to believe it was a routine robbery. Citing the fact that the robbers left behind $200, Boos wants to know if the attack was motivated by race or sexual orientation. The FBI has confirmed that a group of law-enforcement officials is conducting a hate-crime inquiry.

However, Buffalo police call speculation of a hate crime ``alarmist,'' and the young man accused of the murder, William N. Nance, 16, reportedly told police that Trzaska was not singled out for any particular reason. Presumably police can prove that Trzaska was robbed, beaten, and murdered. But will police also have to prove that the attackers thought of their victim's race or sexual orientation and hated him? Would that be practical? Would that be ethical?

Punishing hate as a crime is impractical because it is wrong. Thoughts are not crimes. A crime requires the initiation of force, whether through fraud or physical force; it is a violation of another individual's rights. A hateful emotion based on an irrational thought violates no one's rights. Under objective law, individuals are judged by their actions, not their thoughts and emotions. In other words, individuals have a right to hate whomever they please.

From Lindbergh kidnapper Bruno Hauptmann (who may have hated heroes) and Ted Kaczynski (who clearly hated reality) to Timothy McVeigh (who hated government), applications of hate crime are arbitrary. A government with unlimited control over one's thoughts will lead to tyranny for all Americans -- including gays. Would the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy, both gay serial killers, be worse had they been committed because they hated heterosexuals, or, more accurately, because they hated themselves for failing to be heterosexual?

The idea that one is judged on actions, not motives, is a crucial protection of individual rights. Hate crime is an inversion of this principle. Its consequences are truly lethal, and inevitable, to liberty: hatred of the politically correct favorites of government will be a crime. Will hatred of your mother-in-law, hatred of Christians, hatred of rapists and pedophiles also be a crime? It hardly matters. Thought, as such, will be a crime.

The punishment of murder is justice. The punishment of murderers for their thoughts is totalitarianism.