If there is hate there can be no love. If there is no love there can be no unity. If there is no unity, sigh!, oh, well, then, aaaahhhhlets-get-ready-to-rrruuummmble!!!

I personally do not like hate speak. I think there is a difference between offensive speak and hate speak. But I also believe in free speech. It is a very complicated dilemma. Maybe they should have some sort of law against using hate speaking to induce riots or any other harmful situations. Freedom to do something should not always mean there should be freedom of consequences if something bad happens because of it. Like bullies causing kids to commit suicide. The bullies need to learn this is wrong. Without punishment of some kind they will not learn.

Anything short of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater or making bomb threats is free speech.

Hate speech or offensive speech must give an opportunity to explain itself and be debated. Like if i say i hate coconut and it should be wiped out of the earth, i must be able to defend my point on other than just the taste or the texture because in that case it is a useless opinion that has no weight. On the other hand if i have proof and people can get the same result on why the coconut whould be destroyed, in that case it's not just a empty opinion.

yeah, they can say what they want even if its wrong

No. Hate speech, in some cases (not all) can cause real damage to someone's emotional health.

Yes. Yes it is. If anyone says otherwise they are akin to the retards on the religious right back in the 90s that warned about the downfall of America, through the evil gay agenda. How ironically marvelous that decades later, it would be a gay Brit fighting for them.... that still blows my mind. Less so, than seeing the left liberals become the new intolerant hateful and violent status quo. Sad day.

It is free speech, but is also despicable and should be condemned by the rest of us. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the socisl consequences of that speech.

There is a huge difference between offensive speech and hate speech. Offensive speech is simply saying things (some) others don't want to hear, and that's a right that should be protected. The second, hate speech, is an attempt to make other people share your hate of a specific group of people, and is highly dangerous (hate speeches were the beginning of many genocides) and should be clearly banned in a modern democracy.
In a specifically religious setting, I use this little sentence as a reminder, a modification of a religious tenet I read of: "Hate (or laugh at) the belief, not (at) the believer".

I have a real challenge with this whole idea of "hate" speech." Hate speech has come to mean "anyone that disagrees with me."

If you lie to me, and I call you a liar, that's not hate speech. If I observe that you're acting awful toward another human being, that's not hate speech. If you're exemplifying traits of a bigoted person, and you get called out on that... that's still not hate speech.

We've set that bar so low that everyone who disagrees with us (or worse, hurts our feelings) is hateful and bigoted.

It is. However, I believe that in the US we must remember that freedom is speech as guaranteed by the Constitution only protects us against the Government silencing/punishing people for their speech. It does not mean that any person in the US can say anything they want to and not expect consequences from their workplace, their friends/family, the wider community, etc. I think many people forget that, causing them to use "freedom of speech" as a comeback when they face negative consequences for whatever hate speech they have spouted.

Yes.

People should be free to hate. People should be free to express it. Any claim to the contrary is "thought policing."

Yep, it is. My liking it is not a requirement, apparently.

Wanna say something offensive? (;

if people are allow to speak what they feel or are , then you know the real person and it's up to you to like or not like said person. you don't have to agree with them , but we need to know where said person really stands.

Yes, I like to think free speech came about to protect unpopular speech.

I think mostly, that yes it is free speech. The exception to me would be, if the intent was to incite violence against another person or group, like with a direct threat. Then it becomes assault/battery.
"In most states, an assault/battery is committed when one person: 1) tries to or does physically strike another, or 2) acts in a threatening manner to put another in fear of immediate harm."