Religious Hatred Bill

The Lords send the Religious Hatred Bill packing. I wouldn't want to mount a defence of this odd quirk of British democracy, but when it works, it works.

Daniel Finkelstein makes a good case:

Laws work like women. That is what is wrong with the Government’s Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Laws work like women.

A few years ago a friend of mine arrived in the office on a Monday morning and surprised all his colleagues by announcing that over the weekend he had become engaged. We had no idea that there was a woman in his life. I, for one, thought that the only person that my friend really loved was Dr Who. And, strictly speaking, Dr Who isn’t even a person. He’s a Time Lord.

Anyway, after offering my congratulations, I felt emboldened to give him (my friend, that is, not Dr Who) a warning. I fear, I said as gently as I could, that the science fiction memorabilia adorning your flat will be gone within a year. The model Daleks, the signed picture of Captain Kirk, the lot. “No, no” he replied, confidently. “My fiancée doesn’t mind the memorabilia at all. In fact, she says that she quite likes it.”

That’s when I had to break it to him about women. “That’s not how women work,” I explained. “In a year’s time you will have decided that you don’t want all that stuff any more. That’s how women work.” Twelve months later, in an attic somewhere near Fulham, a poster of John Pertwee duly lay, slowly curling, leaning against a mouldering model of a Dalek.

Since the Government first proposed its invidious religious hatred legislation there has been a great deal of coverage about the circumstances in which people will be prosecuted. Ministers argue that the threat posed to free speech is very small, since any prosecution will have to be sanctioned by the Attorney General. It will be impossible for religious fanatics to use the law to persecute their critics.

Let me break the news gently to the Government, as I once so tactfully did to my science-fiction-loving friend. Prosecutions are irrelevant. That’s not how laws work. [...]

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill may not produce many court cases. Even on the rare occasions when the police and crown prosecution services decide to act, the Attorney General may intervene to avoid a political controversy. But this doesn’t mean that the legislation will have no impact on free speech.

Of course it will. It will have an impact every time the the local arts centre decides that perhaps it had better not book a certain act, or a cinema chain decides not to show a certain film, or a school decides not to hire out its hall to certain speakers. It will have an impact every time the wording of a council leaflet is changed or the local church changes its mind about the topic of its study evening.

In myriad ways, little by little, our freedom will be eroded. And most of the time we won’t even notice.

Pretty soon we’ll come to think that it was our idea, that we like it this way.

Laws, you see, work like women.

Comments

[Professor Froward]

He's right, but here's the part that scared the crap out of me:

"Ministers argue that the threat posed to free speech is very small, since any prosecution will have to be sanctioned by the Attorney General."

Sweet gibbering Jesus, have their brains fallen right out of their heads?

In plain English, "this power can't be abused, because we're putting somebody in charge of it."

Er... non sequitur? Just a little bit? Hello? Everything I hear about this religious hatred bill makes me want to run around in circles, punching myself in the head and yammering, and, and, and... hooting, or something. I just can't think of a more appropriate response.