If you try to create laws prohibiting hate speech, you can get around them by creating idioms. So your laws have to account for context, and that's not something laws are able to do effectively. In fact, the less vague your laws are, the less able they are to account for context.
But, the "reasonable person" referenced in so many laws does recognize idiom.
If I say "I'm going to fuck your shit up", literally that sentence is either a homosexual come-on or means nothing - but idiomatically it means "I will hurt and/or kill you", and at that point a (credible?) threat has been uttered...
So if your "specific" law said "insult X is fighting-words but insult Y isn't", yes that's retarded. But if it says "if a reasonable person would feel the comments were more threat and libel designed to raise hatred against them than criticism..." it might at least be on the right track.
