I'd call it anti-incitement rather than hate speech.
[link|http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_hat9.htm|"Hate Speech"] is far too broad, IMO. In the USA, it's more like this:
Hate-crime legislation increases a criminal's sentence if it can be proven that the crime of which they were found guilty was motivated by hatred of the victim because of their race, religion, sex, or some other factor.
Hate speech legislation criminalizes the denigration, ridicule, or expression of hatred against a person or group on the basis of the victim's race, religion, etc.
These types of legislation do not offer any special protections to any group. They usually include religion and sex as protected classes. They protect Christians, Jews, Muslims, Wiccans, and others alike; they protect both men and women. Those laws which include sexual orientation as a protected class shield everyone equally, whether they be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.
Whenever such legislation is introduced, there is considerable opposition -- mainly from religious and social conservatives -- to the inclusion of sexual orientation as a protected class.
I don't support "hate crime" or "hate speech" legislation - at least as they're outlined above. Someone who's brutally beaten and robbed is just as victimized as anyone else beaten and robbed independent of whatever group(s) they belong to.
Punish the incitement. Don't punish differently because of the characteristics of the victim. [link|http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Equal_protection|Equal protection] under the law needs to mean something.
Hate speech legislation could be used to criminalize satire or ethnic jokes. That's wrong. Poor taste and crude behavior is to be frowned upon, not criminalized.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.