Hate Crimes and Sexual Orientation

President Obama will likely sign into law the new hate crimes bill that will expand the federal law's reach on hate crimes beyond race and into sexual orientation (more).

Injustice caused to others based on race or sexual orientation do disturb me. It's awful.

However, I still struggle with equating race and who you choose to "sleep" with. There's something about it that feels lacking. How do you prove hate crimes against sexual orientation?

If someone shot you, could you argue "He is gay, I am not. That's why he shot me!"? In most cases, how can you prove sexual orientation unless there's video of you in the act? Furthermore, how do you prove that you know the alleged "shooter" is gay if you can only speculate and provide character witnesses. Without other evidence will it stand in court?

All these questions go for other scenarios too such as a non gay shooting a gay.

Race is a little more black and white - no pun intended. But whatever race you are born as, you stay as. What if people change their sexual orientation? What are they? Will you have to register your orientation on documents and make official changes if you decide to sleep with a different gender? I just wonder what kind of mess this is going to cause down the road in terms of false accusations.

I'm not arguing the law is good or bad. I;m really just curious about enforcement. I guess the bottom line is - live above reproach. Just some thoughts...no conclusions.