“An amendment to the law banning incitement to hatred on the basis of sexual orientation has been shot down by MPs. In the second day of debate over the coroners and justice bill, MPs voted down an amendment guaranteeing a defence of free speech in the bill. Government ministers argued the amendment – inserted at the last moment to last year’s Criminal Justice and Immigration Act – provided a loophole to the law, and that it had already set the bar high enough so that those who simply oppose homosexuality would be unaffected. They do not need to fear that they will be caught by the criminal law,” said justice minister Bridget Prentice.” [Politics.co.uk]
Obvious
Extreme Anti-Gay Hate Speech Banned in Britain
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tavdy79
Small correction:
Hate speech is banned in all UK government agencies such as local government, the NHS and the civil service, where it is a sacking offence; I would be surprised if the military were exempt from this since they are not exempt from other hate-based employment regulations, like the ban on BNP members being employed by the civil service or local government.
The Coroners and Justice Bill’s Clause 58 affects civilians – and is directly targeted at individuals who actively encourage violence, intimidation and persecution of gay people. For the most part these are Islamists and far-right British Nationalists – Christofascism is not as significant a problem in Europe as it is in the US.
Tallskin
What??? What the fuck is Queerty saying here?? That article implies a loss for gays, whereas in fact it is the opposite.
MPs voted to outlaw hate speech against gays.
The UK already bans hate speech against people of non-white skin. This new amendment simply gives gays equality with that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/24/hate-speech-rowan-atkinson
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5955711.ece
This really is the new queerty team revealing themselves to be appalling journalists- indeed revealing that they need to become journalists and leave the state of amateurhood behind them. Who employed you people???? Whoever it was needs their heads examining.
David Hauslaib
@Tallskin: No, this article does not. There was an amendment up for vote that would revise hate speech rules to ALLOW extreme, violence-inciting speech aimed at gay people to be PERMITTED. MPs shot down the amendment, keeping current hate speech rules in tact.
Tallskin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7962228.stm
An attempt to insert a defence of “free speech” into a bill designed to criminalise incitement to hatred over sexual orientation has failed.
Campaigners had said the Coroners and Justice Bill would limit expression – some comedians claimed the proposals could leave them open to prosecution.
But ministers said the “free speech proviso” would have provided a loophole for those wishing to incite hatred.
The government defeated the attempt to amend the bill by 154 votes.
The cross-party bid to insert the amendment was led by Labour’s David Taylor.
‘Discussion’
The controversy stems from last year’s Criminal Justice and Immigration Act when Tory former home secretary Lord Waddington succeeded in amending the legislation dealing with inciting hatred on grounds of sexual orientation to allow for “discussion or criticism” of sexual practices.
The government was unable to remove the amendment last year due to a lack of parliamentary time but is now using the Coroners and Justice Bill to scrap it.
Mr Taylor, MP for Leicestershire North West, said his proposal simply made “clear that discussion or criticism of sexual conduct is not caught by the homophobia law”.
High-profile critics of the government’s approach have included Blackadder star Rowan Atkinson, who claimed it could stifle creativity for writers and comedians.
Shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve said that, on balance, he was in favour of an amendment.
‘Latched onto’
He added: “It will provide comfort and reassurance to people that they can continue to express their views.
“Messages get sent out from this place which get latched onto by pressure groups wishing to stop other people expressing legitimate views – even if those legitimate views are in fact nonsensical.
“We cannot have a working democracy without the underpinning of freedom of speech, which also requires the tolerance of the opinions of individuals who we may think are either bonkers or which we dislike.”
Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Howarth supported the government’s intention of scrapping the “Waddington amendment”, which he said was “either useless or dangerous”.
But he said ministers should introduce a requirement to provide guidance to prosecutors and police on use of the new law.
Justice minister Bridget Prentice said it was important to protect victims of threatening behaviour which was intended to stir up hatred but it was also important to protect the freedoms of those who wanted to express concerns about certain sexual behaviour in a reasonable way.
“They do not need to fear that they will be caught by the criminal law,” she said.
Existing laws had a “very high threshold” with sufficient safeguards, Ms Prentice said, and Lord Waddington’s amendment had never been needed.
She added that it had been opposed by the Commons last year.
Mr Taylor’s amendment failed by 328 votes to 174.
rogue dandelion
this will be interesting- if gays are protected from hate speech- and so are other groups(who will remain nameless) who hate gays are protected from hate speech as well- will anyone be able to say anything?
Andrew Triska
This is ridiculous. I may not agree with extremist homophobes, but I’ll be the first one to defend their right to be homophobic.
Tallskin
Andrew,
anti hate speech laws show a society respects those it is protecting.
I appreciate the US has a different view on this “free speech” thing. But in effect this ‘free speech’ means that gays are relentlessly abused. And the US has slipped behind most of Europe in equality for gays.
Europe has strong equality legislation for gays and strong anti hate speech laws.
Some connection there?
Roger Pearse
Is there any practical difference between this law and banning any discussion of gays other than in terms of warmest approval?
Do we want a country which has a law like that? Will we still want it, when Moslems get the same “right”? Which “right” will trump which, in this game of censorship poker?
It’s a truly horrifying, nasty, Nazi business, this. The principle in a free country is always the same; say what you like, but don’t inflict physical injury. In an unfree country, the privileged pass laws against the rest.
Do we want grey-haired clergymen dragged before the courts for reading the bible, because gays say so? Really? How much hate do you have to have, to want to lock up people for disagreeing with you?