There's a still more subtle distinction that I think is also lost on people: You can be in favor of someone being able to say something, but still be opposed to them actually saying it in a given situation.

For example, I don't think people should be barred from saying they hate me and wish ill on me. But I still am strongly opposed to them saying it, and if somebody is saying that around me, I'll either try to get them to stop, get them to go away, or extricate myself. I respect their right to independent thought, but I'm still not going to idly stand by for that.

So I don't think we should do stings to find people discussing how they think it would be cool to traumatize gay kids, but I do think we should oppose them trying to traumatize gay kids within our sphere of influence. And even with the social awareness of the modern age, people still feel pretty free to push for horrible stuff like this in public, so I'm not worried we're going too far at this exact moment.