I'm as anti-homophobia as you'll find (I was raised by lesbian mothers, which tends to make someone fairly pro-gay rights), but I think that "hate crime" laws do more harm than good. I understand that the law needs to look at intent when judging certain crimes, but why do we need to have different rules for murder based on homophobia than murder based on a robbery (for example)? It's murder either way. Does it really make a difference that the murderer killed someone because of their sexual orientation? Does that make them a worse person? "Oh, he's a murderer, and we're basically OK with that, but he's also a bigot, and we just can't have that in our society..." It makes no sense.
Prosecute people for handing out leaflets that directly call for violent crimes to be perpetrated; that's illegal. But don't go acting like prosecuting someone differently because they said "lovely human" is going to have any positive effect on changing the mindset of a bigot. If anything, it will reinforce their bigotry, as they can blame the homosexual agenda for corrupting the judiciary, which just further validates any deranged rantings they might have. You aren't going to change a bigot's mind through punitive measures; only education and personal experience will do that. I guess they're hoping that these people have an "American History X" moment in jail where they can stop being bigots because a gay guy made them laugh; otherwise, this legislation makes absolutely no sense.