There is a long history of hate crimes against homosexuals; these crimes are usually due to the fact that the victim is homosexual. Even though there are hate crime laws in place, the criminals who do these things simply do not see that they are causing harm or death to another person. They think they are doing something right and noble and helping society.

According to statistics, hate crimes are decreasing. Many experts thing that this is because crimes against gay people are not seen as hate crimes. There are are lot of arguments going on today about whether crimes against gay people should be called hate crimes.

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.

From the history of hate crimes it may be seen that they will always be with us, though it's likely that people learning about them will make their frequency decline. Unfortunately, however, the 60's and its civil rights movement has shown that hate crimes will continue on far into the future.

An alternative possibility for the apparent decrease in recent hate crimes is the fact that individuals are frightened. The fear may be from an individual "in the closet", or of the law enforcement community. However, such results are only giving the perpetrators what they desire. The public must know about hate crime before they can do something about it.

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.

The history of hate crimes against gays is staggering. Thousands of people are victimized simply because of their sexual orientation. While the nation itself has hate crime laws, many people who commit these crimes do not care. They see what they are doing as a higher calling or even the right thing to do. What they are really doing is hurting another human being. Statistics are showing that recent hate crimes are declining, but various experts believe that this is simply because most hate crimes against gays are not identified as hate crimes.