Murder Needs No Footnote

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which by some weird circumstance also includes hate crime legislation.

Now, I'm no fan of hate. Hate in all forms is ugly, even when performed by beautiful people (that's a shout out to Stephanie Von Pratt, who turned me down for my senior prom). But here's what I don't get: If I kill someone, I'm a killer. But hate crime law says that I also broke a new law, one that has to do with my thoughts when I committed said crime.

So it's a thought crime more than a hate crime. Which begs the question: How can a thought be against the law?

Now I can barely read, so I don't want to get too deep into this, but if I were to kill my co-host Bill Schulz, whether I hated him or not, that's a crime. But, if we find out later that he was a sequential hermaphrodite, one might say it could be a hate crime.

I don't get that at all.

What of terrorists? Does the fact that they hate us make their crimes worse? Not to them; punishment is meaningless. Which is the real truth about hate, anyway: Hate crime laws won't stop hate or crime. It's an after-the-fact gesture that does nothing to stop evil.

Even more, focusing on the killer's outlook diminishes the victim. It's no longer Bill Schulz is dead, but "Bill Schulz, the sequential hermaphrodite, is dead."

Humanity should come before identity. We need to see people as people, not as part of groups. We know bigotry is bad. But murder in any form is so substantially worse, that it needs no footnote.

And if you disagree with me, then you're probably racist.

Greg Gutfeld hosts "Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld" weekdays at 3 a.m. ET. Send your comments to: redeye@foxnews.com