General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Should Churches Be Taxed? [View all]branford
(4,462 posts)Hate speech laws in the USA are really nothing more than sentence enhancements after conviction of an underlying crime such as assault or murder, and even then these laws sometimes have constitutional problems.
In America, well over a century of jurisprudence indicates that you absolutely cannot criminalize speech simply because it is offensive or hateful, or may engender such feelings in others, no matter how vile or disgusting. It is totally unlike European law, and the reason why ideas like banning Holocaust denial are non-starters here.
At most, if a preacher advocated the immediate harm to an individual, regardless of the reason, and it would be reasonable to assume that such harm would occur, it might be incitement to riot. However, that is a difficult crime to prove and simple "hate speech," no matter how vile, without much, much more, would meet the elements of the offense.