Sure, but what if they aren't actually unfounded?

For example, there’s this Christian Nationalist preacher who, from the pulpit-- and there’s video of this, is actively calling for the execution of LGBTQ+ people.

“They should be taken out, stood against a wall, and shit in the back of the head, after a fair 'trial’, for the crime of homosexuality" he said. He’s actually stated that sentiment multiple times now. Steadfast Baptist Church, I believe.

There was just a mass shooting in Colorado at a gay club.

Are we going to say that that such rhetoric is not hate speech? Free speech does not protect incitement of violence and that preacher is inciting violence against a particular group based on religious intolerance, or hate.

Given the multiple instances of the same rhetoric, the public forum, the deliberate promotion of the rhetoric, and the calls for murder (hard to misinterpret those), I don’t see how we can say, with a straight face anyway, that labelling such discourse as hate speech is unfounded.

What else is genocide based on, if not hate?

He’s calling for genocide.