A crime is a crime. The motivation behind that crime should not affect the penalty. Making a distinction only, in my opinion, serves to bring attention to the fact that this person did this out of hate for a particular ethnic group/whatever. The intent behind making a "hate crime" a harsher punishment is noble in theory, however, in practice it's an attempt to, in essence, force the ideal that prejudicial motivation behind a crime is somehow worse than someone who does it for other reasons. Like it or not there will always be bigoted, prejudiced people willing to commit crimes, but just the same, there are people who will also commit the same crimes for no logical reason at all. In short, a crime is a crime and the motivations behind that crime are irrelevant.