Oh! Such a nasty word! Be sure to arrest that kid!

I often disagree with parts of your comments, richg, but I find only a little to disagree with here. Hate speech laws that address anything less than direct incitement to criminal activity are a blight on freedom and open society, not to mention a direct and obvious violation of the constitution(in the U.S.) I have never supported them and I never will, unless society becomes so unhinged as to be on the verge of a purge. Even then, what good would such laws really do? One could even argue that such measures only bottleneck social pressures, resulting in more extreme, if hidden, ideologies and possibly violence. Beside, if nobody can act like a frothing bigot in public, how will we know who they are?

Of course, I do have my criticisms. You wrote:

This is not as available to someone seen as a "majority" - that is a white, traditional, male, heterosexual (some would add Christian).

As British law and American public discourse show, this is rapidly changing. I would certainly not add christianity to your list. Christians of many stripes are starting to catch on to the idea, and expecting to be treated as an endangered minority simply beacause many sane people regard them as bigots. While damning a homosexual to hell and calling for anti-gay legislation, sometimes even violence, is "protected religious speech" to them, they throw a fit when someone calls them bigoted because of their views. I doubt it's a majority yet, but give it a while and I bet we'll see more than one christian leader calling for government punishment of anti-christian speech. I have noticed that conservatives in this country have an amazingly hypocritical tendency to utilize the very tactics they cry about, as soon as it will bring a political advantage. Since freedom of speech still works to the majority's advantage in this case, maybe we'll actually see some consistency.

Also, consider the fact that while freedom of speech existed in theory since the ratification of the first amendment, it is now in many ways more protected than ever, even after twenty years of 'political correctness.' While legislation and enforcement may not have been universal over history, christians, conservatives, and the "traditional" majority have often created and used laws against open-ended terms like profanity, indecency, very loosely defined "sedition" and "conspiracy" and a host of other boogeyman terms used to silence critics since our country's founding. They just didn't call it "hate speech," and the only "rights" being protected were the rights of the majority to unconstitutionally oppress and jail the minority.
Forty years ago, you could go to jail for bad taste in many places. Many places have laws protecting those poor, powerless police officers and judges from "verbal assault." Plenty of people still went to jail over simple, honest words directed at that poor, persecuted majority, despite the constitution and all the right-wing lip service it receives.

Again, I do not support hate speech laws, or any restriction of speech outside of provable, injurious criminality. But as a foul mouthed, authority hating, unchurched, marijuana advocating lover of liberty, it is kind of funny to see conservative bigots deal with that scourge of political correctness. Ever notice how none of them can just man up and take their own medicine, even though it's medicine that many of them would love to see forced on every minority, just like in the good old days?

Sorry to go so far afield. This post shows the ridiculous possibilities of a ridiculous law that was supported by overly sensitive and self-important fools on both left and right. Damn shame, and I hope the court treats the kid's rights as seriously as they will the rights of the multi-million dollar cult.