So the UK government have retabled legislation to introduce a new offence: incitement to religious hatred. Linky linky (with a very definite bais)

Rather than simply amend the existing legislation which provides for an offence of incitement to racial hatred (as the Lib Dem MP suggested, adding "reference to a religion as a pretext for stirring up racial hatred"), the new law could criminalise the criticising of a religion.

For instance, if I were to refer to the Catholic church as "a bunch of backward, morally reprehensible fools at least partially responsible for the spread of AIDS worldwide", I could face up to 7 years in jail for exerting my freedom of speech and expressing my opinion.

The article I've linked to raises an excellant point:


To me, there is little difference between criticising someone's religion, and their political stance. They are free to choose both, and both should be open to discussion, debate, satire and ridicule.

On the flip side, (and I'm not sure how truthful it is), should the new legislation make it onto the statue book, it ought to confer similar protections to atheists and agnostics. So when a frothing evangelist tells me that I'm going to burn in hell, they could be committing a criminal offense.

While we're on this topic, here's another thing. The Daily Telegraph (subscription required to read the article) ran a story on it's front page in typically knee-kerk fashion complaining that Satanists would receive equal protection of their religion under this new legislation. Well, isn't that the point of having freedom of religion?

Did you expect any better from the Torygraph?

A few bits of oddness in the Guardian article, but no more than the temporary outbursts of strangeness one expects from the Guardian in general and Polly Toynbee in particular. We are not This most secular state in the world, with fewest worshippers at any altars, since as of the 2001 Census only 15% of Britons had no religion (the most secular state is probably the Czech Republic, with 59% of the population self-identifying as atheist).

Overall, though. Toynbee is entirely correct. Should this abomination pass, I recommend attempting to have anybody who publishes the Bible prosecuted for disseminating hate literature ("So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded." Joshua 10:40).

Heres another link from the Beeb website, which is a touch less biased

This Q&A section is pretty good too...

I like the idea of making it specifically illegal to incite religious hatred, but there has to be a cut off point as to what is incitement. We need greater clarification on what can and cannot be said. So far the Bill is in its infancy and these points have yet to be raised and effectively dealt with. So we need the debate to go on.

Amending the race relations legislation will have no greater or lesser bearing than passing the bill... as any amendments would have to go through the same process as the bill is going through in order to address the very real question of how far reaching the law will be. As a separate bill more time will be given to answering these questions. A simple amendment can be passed more quickly and possibly rushed through Parliament by the Home Office - thus scuppering any real debate on the matter.

There is going to have to be a balance between the rights of individuals to free worship without being harassed, and the rights of individuals to fairly criticise, lampoon or verbally attack other faiths. Junior Home Office ministers have gone on record saying that this isn't about criticising religion but protecting the rights of individuals (whatever that means) so I suppose the crux of it is down to who gets attacked - the faith or the worshiper, and how they get attacked.

Personally I would like to see similar protection for non-believers in any faith - whereby atheists cannot be discriminated against (except for when it comes to jobs within the clergy). I do think that all religions should be covered including what is dubbed Satanism - so long as the how they get attacked is dealt with carefully. Criticising certain faiths in Africa for supporting Female Genital Mutilation or some branches of Satanism for their encouragement of violence against women - must be protected. But trying to whip up a frenzy agains Muslims because of 9/11 has to be curtailled.

If this law was proposed in 1997 I would have said - lets wait and see what the government are going to do - I think we should give them a chance to present their case... however after 8 years of Mr Blair's control freakery I am less inclined to just wait and see - so I hope that back-bench Labour MPs get bullied into challenging their government into full open and entirely transparent debates on ALL the issues herein.

As an aside I think we need an overhaul of the blasphemy laws – they need to be removed, and replaced with clear guidance through the incitement to religious hatred bill as to what can and cannot be said and done.

As Trevor Phillips (the Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality) said:

"In essence the law should protect the believer; the belief should be strong and confident enough to fight for itself."

As I'm an American, I can't fully speak on behalf of Brits, but here's my two cents anyway.

That's disgusting. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech in and of themselves should completely do away with this bill. However, I think that th meaning of the law is to keep people from terrorizing the Muslim community - extending hate crime legislation to religion. I'm sure it isn't intended to hinder one's ability to criticize religion. I can say "Asians are all squinty bastards" (not that I believe that at all!) and no one could do anything about it. With this, I can still say something to the effect that "Jews are all money hoarding big nosed people" (not that I believe that either) and still not be punished. If I were to kill Asians and Jews for that reason alone, though, I would be succeptable to hate crime legislation.

This, however, brings up a case in and of itself - there should be no hate crime legislation to begin with. The motive of a crime should only be used to establish that the crime happened or didn't happen, it should NOT be a factor in punishment.

In short, this shit shouldn't pass and hate crime legislation should be revoked.

Now, I don't pop into Issues very often (bit empty up in the ol' noggin *taps head*) but this topic intrigued me. Can anyone explain to me (in simple terms ) why this law is a bad thing, because as far as I can see, it's only a good thing.

*dons dunce's cap*

Having suffered racism for many years I feel that the race relations legislation we have in this country has helped. Certainly I feel better protected knowing that because it is illegal the Police have to do something about it. I have attended and spoken at seminars prior to the Steven Lawrence enquiry, where two police chiefs expressed their total indiference to race related crimes - stating that if a gang of white youths attacked an Asian they would treat it as a public disorder offence (which would probaby get them a few hours community service time). This is not because they were racist cops, but rather they didn't understand how badly racism affects it's victims (whatever their ethnic makeup).

In the UK with the existing legislation and new initiatives I feel safer. As to whether the new protection against religious incitement laws will help or hinder - I guess we're going to have to pressurise our MPs to make sure the Bill gets pushed in the right direction and not become yet another rushed peice of legislation that causes more problems than it solves.
________

On the point of motive - in the Common Law system that is adopted in the UK an USA - as I'm sure your aware - motive is needed to necesitate prosecution in many criminal acts. ie. You need to prove motive in murder otherwise it can be reduced to manslaughter. In some cases motive does change the outcome of the sentence - eg:

Motive 1. I killed someone because I thought they had killed my parents
Motive 2. I killed someone because they were trying to stop me from stealling all their money
Motive 3. I killed someone because I hate people with their skin colour.

In all three cases the murder was committed, but looking at the motives we can see that the differing reasons. I think that this should be looked into when sentencing... it allows judges the descresion to award higher penalties or lower penalties depending on mitigating factors. It means that sentences can be tailored to fit the varying nature of the crimes committed.

The possible problems with this proposed law is that:

1. It will end people's right to freedom of speech - so we won't be able to say that our Religion is better than any other religion... we won't be able to joke about religion... we won't be able to voice any concerns about other religions (eg - some African tribal religions say FGM is important - and we won't be able to criticise that)... we won't be able to joke about religion - effectively banning Monty Python's the Life of Brian... and we won't be able to discuss what religious leaders are doing - (eg some Imams supporting Al Quaeda, or some Zionist Rabbis supporting the forced removal and/or ethnic cleansing of Palestine).

2. It will give big religions a club to beat atheists, and push for their religious adgendas - eg ending creationalism being taught in schools as it is against evolutionism, or ending abortion, or forcing atheists to convert...

3. It will undermine race relations between the many faiths and communities in the UK as they get into conflicts as to who is being attacked and who is doing the attacking.

To be honest though - all of these issues are supposed to be addressed so that the law won't cause any of the above problems. Read the links above to get an idea of what might go wrong if this Bill is passed too quickly.

To play devil's advocate, how closely would this likely be inforced? I mean, what's the likelihood that the government would actually ban something like The Life of Brian? I just don't see how it's viable. Critical references to religion are far too pervasive for this to be effective enforced on that level. For example, Catcher in the Rye is "classic literature" in which the narrator rudely mocks Catholics; poets are especially bad about it (think of Blake); philosophers (Voltaire, Nietsche); and so on. Basically, if this were strictly enforced, education would be shot to hell. Short of a Fahrenheit 451 scenario, it would be impossible for the government to obliterate every criticism of religion, even and especially that which is taught in schools. It would be a serious detriment to education if they even tried.

I think the areas where this is going to be forced will be on issues where the Act got it's initial mandate from: Muslim Imams and Mullahs spreading religious hate and incitement to violence - specifically the likes of Abu Hamza at the Finsbury Park Mosque, and some Christian churches in South East London that have been known to say much the same.

It will also be something that individuals can complain about and press charges over - specifically over matters relating to things like the widespread Muslim abuse, and possibly over some of the more verciforous abuse faced by some evangelical door knocking types like the JWs... here if someone is abused and the cops are involved they will have the power to charge any offender with the specific offence as well as other charges such as public disorder etc.

It might also be used against certain journalists and publications of a political / religious nature. Certainly the work of the BNP and the NF will fall foul of this new law, though the Dail Hate (Mail) will continue to publish their own brand of anti-Muslim literature - it won't get caught - as what they've published falls short of incitement.

I do not see this as Police officers wandering around the streets of London or Birmingham with truncheons at the ready looking for religious critics to arrest. The crime will be committed before they get involved, and then it's likely that it will be in conjunction with other race related criminal acts and will need the complainant to press charges.

It depends how you put it. If you say that about Catholocism you've basicaly been rude; you've called them fools and morally reprehensible and blamed them for causing aids but you've not explained why you feel that way, and without the explaination it's just an insult. I feel that any law which protects beleivers from harrassment but allows critisism of the religion itself has to be a good thing and this seems to be what this law is for; you can encite religious hatred without inciting racial hatred through it e.g. Ireland, and laws need to be made to deal with that.



While I would argue that you can't really choose your beliefs, because belief is not a conscious choice when it comes to faith because we simply cannot know which religion is true, as they all have similar "proof", I would also argue that we need to be able to criticise religion because if not we allow a basic abuse of human rights such as forced marriage or female circumcision. However these rights do not seem to be removed by the bill.



The whole ideas of the bill is to protect worshipers rather than prevent religious criticism. If the religion cannot stand up to criticisms then it deserves to hear those criticisms and this bill will not prevent thise criticisms being made.



And yeah Satanists, atheists and agnostics deserve the same protections and under the bill the telegraph could prabably be prosectued for their article, but then I would approve of that (haven't read the article as I am not a subscriber so if you have reason to counter my idea please tell me). Mind you freedom of religion should not reach the extent that other peoples human rights are not restricted, i.e. forced conversion.



Actually under English law I think you could be prosecuted for saying that as that's a racist statement and incites racial hatred.



But that legislation is necessary to discourage hate related crime. Inciting racial/religious hatred, and by this I mean saying lets go burn that temple/shoot those blacks, needs to be punishable. Also by placing harsher penalties on attacks motivated by religion, race or homphobia we discourage people from doing those things as it's not worth the punishment, and we help to change attitudes so that people come to realise such things are unacceptable.