An alarming increase in legislation that constrains free speech
There was a strange non sequitur in Jack Straw’s latest policy announcement. The Justice Secretary revealed that inciting hatred of homosexuals would soon be a crime punishable by seven years in prison. And justifying the legislation, he said this: ‘It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last ten years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality. It is time for the law to recognise this.’
The logic of this quite defeats me. It seems to be saying that because homosexuals are no longer loathed or despised, it should be against the law to loathe or despise them. Yet if we are now in a position where homosexuals are not discriminated against and subjected to abuse, and they have got to that position without the benefit of such legislation, then such legislation must surely be superfluous.
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Rod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP
Cass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme
The acclaimed web theorist, Mark Earls, says that the death of Michael Jackson unleashed the extremes of collective action: mass mourning and sick jokes
In the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop
My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.
Rod Liddle says that Sarah Teather, the righteous young Lib Dem MP who refused to claim for a second home, proves that it wasn’t mandatory for MPs to fleece us
Salil Tripathi says that the Prince’s remarks were ill chosen and regrettable but the deeper principle concerns freedom of expression and ever greater encroachments upon it
Douglas Murray says that he stopped being an Anglican after analysing Muslim texts and deciding that no book — of any religion — could claim infallibility
Sarfraz Manzoor celebrates an iftar meal with homeless people and his fellow Muslims, a web-generated ‘flashmob’ observing an Islamic tradition of generosity to the needy
These narcissistic adolescent halfwits should not fill us with fear, says Rod Liddle. The aircraft plot trial showed yet again that those who wish to murder us with fizzy pop and peroxide are a bunch of cowards
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Lewis Reich
October 10th, 2007 8:37pm"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.