Laws that bring out the bigot in me
Laws that constrain free speech bring out the childish bigot in me
10 October 2007
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An alarming increase in legislation that constrains free speech
Much the same question was asked when the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was introduced; that quite aside from being an iniquitous limit on the freedom of speech, the legislation was quite unnecessary. Muslim leaders had been agitating for legislation to plug what they believed was a loophole in the anti-hate business: Muslims, being a group delineated by their religious observance rather than a racial group, were therefore excluded from previous anti-hate legislation, they argued. But this was arrant nonsense. A few months before the legislation was introduced, Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, had been arrested for inflammatory things he is alleged to have said about Islam and Muslims. The police on that occasion did not need the benefit of a new law to bang him up and try him, twice, at enormous expense, for inciting racial hatred. So why introduce the new law? I have never heard a convincing explanation of this from a government minister; the reason, I suspect, is that there simply isn’t one.
The suspicion will persist that both of these new pieces of legislation — about the homosexuals and the Muslims — are bones thrown to two of Labour’s loyal client groups. Two groups which have traditionally voted Labour, despite misgivings here or there. And two groups which, rather more problematically, loathe one another. The old Rainbow Coalition always contained colours which clashed a little.
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Lewis Reich
October 10th, 2007 8:37pm Report this comment"According to a friend of mine, a school in south London recently attempted to counter incipient homophobia among its students by instituting severe penalties for anyone heard using the word ‘gay’ in a derogatory manner. So the kids stopped screaming ‘gay’ at one another. Now they shout out ‘Jew’ instead." I imagine it remains to be seen whether there will be any attempt to counter incipient antisemitism.
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