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A number of terrible offenses have been reported in the history of hate crimes. An outrageous number of people have been injured or killed after having committed no crime other than being homosexual. In many instances it is irrelevant that hate crime laws are on the books. The perpetrators see themselves doing the work of their religion. However, the truth is, they are violating one of the basic principles of every civilization since the beginning of time.

Recent hate crimes are showing a decline but the controversy about counting the hate crimes against gays is still a debatable topic among the people. Moreover some people think weather hate against gays should even be called a hate crime or not.

However, they are what they are. The history of hate crimes has a long list of incidents, from the thousands of people who have been terrorized, to those that have been stalked or killed. Despite being in a country that has freedom of religious choice as a main tenet of society, people are still being killed for thinking or acting outside of the normal societal bounds. It is usually the perpetrators of the hate crimes who have the problems with homophobia by acting out their issues.

The history of hate crimes tells us that they do not ever go away. As more people become educated on the topic, they will decrease. If we have learned anything from our nation's past, and the civil rights movement of the sixties, we will realize that there will be hate crimes far into the future.

There has also been a marked decline in recent hate crimes due to the sheer fact of fear. Many victims do not report the crimes because they are afraid. A lot of people don't think that the police will act for the good of the gays, and so many people who have been victimized go into hiding and do not bring their crimes to the surface. This makes the whole problem worse.

People will give a multitude of excuses for the existence of "hate crimes". All of these listings boil down to intolerance. These could be disapproval of an alternate belief system, or distaste for the sexual and personal identity of others. Regardless of the stated reasons, both the source and the resulting violence are wrong. Rational individuals must be willing to do whatever is necessary to bring such hatred to a close.