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As has been pointed out, hate crimes require evidence just as anything else. Doing something bad to a gay person does not make it a hate crime. Doing something bad to a gay person because he is gay does.
As has been noted, different levels of crime based on intent is nothing new whatsoever. Hate crime legislation doesn't make gay people more valuable than straight people any more than the victim of premeditated murder is more valuable than the victim of a crime of passion. If your problem with hate crimes truly is the sense that victims of a crime with the same result are being treated differently, then I can't see any reason why you'd support different degrees of murder either. In all cases, someone is dead.
Of course, the legal system isn't your own personal revenge machine, so it doesn't really give a fuck about the victim (at least, it shouldn't). The law is there to judge the criminal and create a safer society for us all to live in. So, we collectively decide that we are generally more forgiving of someone who murders in a crime of passion than someone who commits a premeditated act of murder. Likewise, we collectively decide that crimes against someone specifically because they are a member of an oft-persecuted group should be especially discouraged. Such crimes have a negative psychological effect on the whole group and are particularly detrimental to society.
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"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling
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