I do not support the notion of hate crimes, but I think proponents' idea is to treat crimes more seriously if they're calculated to intimidate an entire group.

This is the exact same reasoning used to declare some crimes "terrorism".

They're words used to fire people up and justify gov't actions.

Hate is an emotion. It is a crime to feel unapproved emotions.

It is worse than that. Hate Crime legislation actually creates Preferred Victim Classes in the eyes of rational criminals. Consider that you are a purely unbiased felon wanting to attack a RANDOM victim. If you target a gay, woman, immigrant, or minority and at any point in your life made comments critical of that group, or target a victim willing to lie and SAY you made a hateful comment, your punishment will be dramatically greater than if you targeted a white male Christian citizen, making it only logical to avoid the groups protected by Hate Crime Legislation and focus your criminality on the rest of society.

Surely the First Amendment and principle of Equal Protection of the Law would require that otherwise identical offenses receive identical punishment regardless of any utterances made in or around their commission. Otherwise, the difference in punishment can represent nothing less than the criminalization of the defendant's speech.

Wonder if there was open carry at the event?

The term "Hate crime" was created as a crime against "diversity" which is much much worse than murder. (sarcasm)