Fact of the day?

It can be argued that the purpose of hate crime laws is to punish not so much the act, but the thought, and are therefore thought crimes and dangerous to a free society.
-Actual (word for awkward word) true/false question from a quiz in my Police Process class. The closest my book comes to making a statement like that is, "Because motivation is subjective, it is often difficult for police officers to determine if an offense was motivated by bias." I'll let you guys guess what the correct answer is, but my own conclusion is that reading that sentence is a thought crime and dangerous to a free mind.