I agree that hate crime legislation is extremely anti-democratic and Orwellian. However, isn't it really ironical that B'nai B'rith would be lobbying for something that can lead to people being called criminals for criticizing Islam! LOL! The height of irony.

You say that we already have such laws in Canada and in Europe. True. Yet, oddly enough, it appears to me that Canada and much of Europe, in spite of those laws, are in practice considerably less Orwellian than the USA is right now without those laws.

Perhaps it is less a matter of law than of the hidden intent behind that law on the part of those enacting it.