The starting point for the two essays Murphy and Weinstein to which I will attempt some brief rejoinder was, as they make clear, a thorough and penetrating article Susan Gellman.(1) In it she laid bare the First Amendment shortcomings a popular form statute that creates an additional crime when an underlying offense such as an assault is found to have occurred because of, or by reason of the race, color, religion, or other characteristics the victim. Sometimes the statutes enhance the underlying offense raising its degree, for instance, from a misdemeanor to a felony. Professor Gellman's article received the accolade providing rationale, and quoted language, for a 1991 decision the Supreme Court Wisconsin.(2) There the court invalidated on First Amendment grounds a statute that, applied to a black defendant who incited others to beat a white youth for racial reasons, doubled his sentence from two years to four. Professor Murphy concentrates his fire on one central (but not essential) element the Gellman article. She observes that hate crime enhancement statutes necessarily inquire into motive--why did the defendant batter the plaintiff? Motive, she says, is not ordinarily an element in defining criminality. And when the answer to the question Why? is bias, the law intrudes upon the thoughts and beliefs the wrongdoer. The First Amendment enthrones freedom speech. Anterior to speech, and on an even loftier throne, sits freedom belief. Racist bias is, for most us, a prime example the that we hate.(3) That kind hated thought is just what the First Amendment must protect. Nothing else does. Now, Professor Murphy lets fly a powerful broadside at the cliche that motive has no part in defining criminality. He is very likely right in his argument that we frequently need to know about motive. But when the motive's kernel is exposed, and it reveals a political or social belief system that we are compelled to tolerate, then: not so fast! You may not make such a belief the essence a crime. That is all I think Gellman needed to say. Murphy concludes suggesting that a racially motivated assault implies contempt for the victim, and does him psychic as well as physical harm. That is probably true (though Murphy the philosopher cannot leave it at that: he blunts the edge his argument speculating that all assailants are motivated a desire to humiliate their victims). The added harm to the victim is likewise adduced Weinstein as a prop for legitimizing enhancement crimes. Let us turn to his elaborate and trenchant dismantling Gellman. Weinstein declares that he is refuting only the position that enhancement statutes on their face violate the First Amendment. He allows that they can be applied in unconstitutional ways. But he develops his case marshalling a whole catalog reasons why enhancement statutes may be enacted. In doing so, he ranges far beyond the rather technical concepts that support facial invalidity. He concludes summarizing (so succinctly that I will simply quote) what he thinks are five legitimate interests that the state may have in enhancing the punishment for racially motivated crimes: (1) such crimes are inherently especially reprehensible; (2) there is a moral consensus that such crimes are particularly blameworthy; (3) racially motivated violence is often more damaging to the victim than the same violent act lacking racial animus; (4) racial violence can often have an in terrorem effect for members the victim's community; and (5) such violence has an especially pernicious effect on society as a whole.(4) These are all plausible policy reasons for enacting enhancement laws. But, I submit, they all ignore the brooding omnipresence the First Amendment. They do, for all Weinstein's denials, punish a defendant for holding bigoted thoughts and beliefs. …