While the debate on hate speech rages on in the United States, laws in other countries can seem downright fantastical: A court in France ruled that ACT UP insulted a noted anti-gay activist by calling her a homophobe.

In 2013, ACT UP Paris plastered posters with the face of Ludovine La Rochère, head of La Manif pour tous, and the word "homophobe," around the city.

La Manif lead the fight against marriage equality, which came to France that same year.

But a lawyer for the group insisted "describing La Manif pour tous as homophobic is a criminal offense."

The anti-equality movement in France has focused on the importance of traditional mother-family families in stabilizing the country, which is facing high unemployment and economic woes.

"Within our reach, there is a reservoir, a bearer of meaning, of energy, of solidarity, of relationships: the family, the source of all the human and economic riches of the nation—of all nations, Rochère said at a 2014 rally. "And a barrier against crime, against despair and against all extremisms."

La Manif's demonstrations have focused on how equal marriage enables gay couples to adopt children or go through insemination, both of which are currently only available to married couples in France.

“Every person is the product of the union between a father and a mother,” La Manif leader Albéric Dumont told the New Yorker. “We feel that every child has a right to a father and mother.”

Despite La Manif's clear opposition to LGBT rights, the judge ruled that former ACT UP leader Laure Pora has to pay $889 in fines, plus court courts of more than $1,660.

An attorney for Pora called the ruling "particularly unfair."