Religious hatred bill debated
October 18th 2005, 08:56 Jeff Sela
A few notes about the UK's new Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which is still going through the Lords but is likely to become law fairly soon. I know this is meant to be a blog about sex, but this law could be—depending on whether the Lords manage to get it amended to be less bad—a serious impediment to free speech in the UK. Free speech and religion are always tied up with sexual freedom, or the lack of it.
The government has been trying to push some sort of law through for years that would allow people to be prosecuted for saying things that they think might cause ‘religious hatred’. Exactly what that means seems to not be entirely clear, but the government's explanatory notes say that it targets “stirring up hatred against persons on religious grounds”.
The Lords debated this on Tuesday, and they warned of all sorts of problems with it. The government have been saying that the intention is to plug a small hole in the current laws, which already make it an offense to incite hatred against particular racial groups, for example. There was much discussion of exactly what things might fall under the new law but not be illegal under the current laws. There didn't seem to be much agreement on this, which is worrying. From what the government have been saying it sounds like the bill is so narrow that it would hardly ever be used, but if that were true I can't see why they'd be making such a fuss about getting it into law.
I think it's likely, though—and many of the Lords who spoke against the bill seemed to feel the same way—that the bill could be interpreted in far too broad a way, meaning that valid criticism and healthy mockery of religion could be criminalized. The definition of religious hatred is too open on several sides:
- It doesn't require you to actually intend to stir up hatred, so if you say something out of ignorance or without realising that it will upset people then you could be in trouble.
- It doesn't require the people being stirred up to be ‘reasonable’ (as Lord Wedderburn of Charlton pointed out), so you could be in trouble if you happen to be overheard by some religious or anti-religious nutter.
- While the subject of the bill is hatred of people for religious reasons, that's not a million miles from hatred of religions themselves, which should never be banned. So even if you're making an argument that a particular religion is a bad idea, you could be in danger because other people might get the wrong idea and hate the practitioners of that religion instead. Given the current hysteria around religion, I don't think we can rely on everyone to be particularly philosophical about this stuff.
By the way, Boris Johnson wrote a great piece back in June about why simply reading bits of the Koran, or other major religious screeds, might be considered an incitement to religious hatred.
Another concern is that despite the government's stated intention that this law shouldn't outlaw valid religious criticism, there may be expectations amoung some religious people that they can use the law to defend their faith in the courts. Lord Lester of Herne Hill pointed out:
It should cause concern to the Government, for example, that Sir Iqbal Sacranie OBE, the leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, still believes, according to his public utterances, that the new offences will enable Salman Rushdie to be prosecuted for publishing his novel The Satanic Verses.
Freedom of speech, like equality and freedom of religion, is a fundamental civil and political right. Its protection is at the heart of our liberal democratic society. The right to freedom of speech means the right of everyone to communicate information and opinions without unnecessary state control or interference. That includes evil ideas expressed intemperately or in ways that shock, disturb or offend some sections of society. It includes insulting and offensive criticism of religious beliefs and practices—whether traditional religions or new religions or cults—provided it poses no imminent threat to public order.
This difference in perspective could lead to religious groups bringing private prosecutions against authors, as Mary Whitehouse did with the obsolete blasphemy law in 1977.
Baroness Turner of Camden talked about womens rights as being a likely source of contention:
Any attack on the way religion treats women will be regarded by some of these clerics as an incitement to religious hatred. This has already led to violence in the Netherlands, with the murder of the film-maker [Theo] Van Gogh by an Islamic fundamentalist in response to a film about Islamic attitudes to women. The Bill should not pass this House as it stands.
By far the most of the speakers seemed to be against the new law, and even some of the supporters didn't seem entirely sure. For example, The Lord Bishop of Oxford started out by saying “I support the legislation”, but went on to say that he wasn't sure why existing legislation wasn't already adaquate protection for religious people:
I am open to being convinced by the Government that we need a new offence, but we need more evidence than we have so far heard. Because of the great worries that have been expressed, the Government should seriously consider possible amendments to the Bill. A number would be possible. One could be an amendment recognising a defence that there is no offence if the speaker, or whoever is appropriate, is engaged in bona fide religious discussion, education or artistic expression.
Another amendment would remove Section 18(1)(b) altogether so that the offence is committed only if the speaker or other person intends to stir up religious hatred…
The bill will now go into the comittee stage. Unfortunately, the Lords are likely to vote for it to pass into law, even though they don't seem to like it, because there's a tradition that the government's manifesto commitments, of which this was one, should be passed as a matter of course. Hopefully, though, they'll insist on some amendments to make it less damaging.
External links
Related articles
- October 20th 2005
Last ditch attempt to protect religious criticism
