Misty Media Sex Blog

October 20th 2005, 14:25 Jeff Sela

The opponents to the Religious Hatred law have made a last ditch attempt to prevent it from becoming a dangerous impediment to free speech, by proposing a set of amendments that would “take the rot out of a rotten bill”, according to Lord Lester.

The amendments would restrict prosecutions to people who could be shown to have intended to stir up religious hatred (rather than doing so accidentally), and who had used threatening language. They would also protect legitimate criticism, mockery, insults, and the like.

Various amendments have been proposed in the Commons and the Lords, but so far haven't been adopted. This is now the last chance to modify the bill before it becomes law. Next week it will be discussed in ‘committee stage’ in the House of Lords. Given that it was a government manifesto commitment, it's almost certain to be passed into law in one form or another.