Openly gay political commentator Lindsay Perigo isn’t feeling Britain’s proposed hate speech laws. Those regulations will prohibit anti-gay and homophobic language. Perigo, an openly gay New Zealand native, compares the move to fascism, saying,
[This is a] brazen assault on free speech by Britain’s PC Labour Government on behalf of Politically Correct poofs.
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Make no mistake, these book-burners will soon enough be attempting to have the United Nations require similar laws all over the world, including New Zealand.
Hmm, interesting take. We agree, but only to a certain degree. While we would love to see laws prohibiting hate speech of all varieties, such a law could a. lead to more resentment against gays and b. doesn’t have a limit. What is and is not considered hate speech can change over time and context. We would not, however, equate the laws to “fascism,” nor would we call the politicians “book burners”. We all know how Queerty feels about those people.
WWH
Plain and simple: England, home of the ASBO, is not a free country.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
I am not here to support the United Kingdom. There are many responsibilities associated with privileges that we seek when equal justice is the goal.
If you want to be protected from hate speech, and subsequent physical violence or bashing, then adults understand the fact that all not all individuals who share your sexual orientation are necessarily on the same page.
Heterosexuals do not imprimatur every thought in the Straight Community just because they are also heterosexual.
Colour me supportive of our laws that protect certain rights of the majority population as it also seeks to protect the rights of an oppressed minority.
Jason
I find hate oriented laws of any kind ridiculous. Assault or Murder is just that and I don’t care that you did it because you didn’t like the group the person belonged to. Where does this end? If I killed someone b/c they have red hair; isn’t that a hate crime as well. An area we should adjust our laws to consider intent is attempted murder. If a person shoots another and doesn’t kill them they should not benefit just b/c they are a bad shot.
Nick Henderson
Johann Hari, a gay columnist in the UK’s Independent(.co.uk) also wrote an article criticising both Hate Crime Laws and the new Incitement to Gay Hatred Laws. I dont have the link but it should be easy to find on the Independents website if you check the comment section for october 11th
Anyway I completley disagree, and as LGBT Spokesperson for the Scottish Socialist Party I sent the following letter to the Independent, which did not get published.
(The SSP is only a minor party in Scottish politics at the moment, but it is the only one that fully supports equality in the UK, including marriage equality and anti-discirimination legislation.)
“In response to Johann Hari’s ‘Gay Bashing should not be a Hate Crime’ (11 October 2007), certain myths and falsehoods in regards to the LGBT community and Hate Crime laws are being left unchallenged.
Hari’s argument does not seem to differentiate between Hate Crime laws, and the proposed Incitement to Gay Hatred laws that Jack Straw announced last week. Hate Crime laws ensure that LGBT citizens who are singled out and attacked purely because of their sexual orientation, be it perceived or actual, are given the same treatment as would be given to someone who is attacked due to their race or religion.
Hate Crimes laws do not give a ‘special protection’ to LGBT people. Johann Hari is correct; we are just human beings, as are those who commit these awful acts. But we are human beings who have faced persecution for millennia, continue to face it all around the world today while being legally discriminated against in our own country. Hate Crime laws simply recognise homophobic attacks as being equally severe as those motivated by the hatred of black people or the hatred of Jews, Christians or Muslims. Hari gave an example of Robert Goddard and his boyfriend being threatened with violent murder after getting on a bus: “You fucking batty-boys! We’re going to smash your head with a brick. We’re going to follow you off the bus and kill you.†Replace the homophobic language with racist, and you have yourself a Hate Crime. In fact, that incident was a Hate Crime, as the bus was travelling through East London.
Had that bus been travelling through the east end of Glasgow, it would not be. Scottish Labour steadfastly refused to bring in this simple but vital extension to existing legislation in eight years of running the Scottish Executive. The SNP, despite Hate Crimes being a manifesto commitment for them, have failed to move on this issue, possibly because of the £500,000 campaign donation by noted homophobe and transport tycoon, Brian Souter. Now that Green MSP Patrick Harvie has introduced the bill, Scottish Labour are again staying silent on the issue, and the Conservatives have, unlike their English counterparts, come out strongly against the bill. The Scottish Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary, Bill Aitken, said that it was ‘heterosexual white males’ that now needed protection from the courts, not LGBT or disabled people, and presumably not other minorities either.
Logically, Johann Hari and his supporters should be calling for the repeal of all Hate Crimes laws, like the Scottish Conservatives are. However, in his article, it was the Incitement to Gay Hate laws that seemed to anger Hari most. This is a different piece of legislation than Hate Crimes, but fundamentally with the same argument. You can’t incite people to go and kill someone because of their race or religion, so why not their sexuality?
A British Muslim, Abdul Saleem, was convicted of stirring up racial hatred during the Danish cartoon protests when he was filmed chanting “7/7 on its way” and “Europe, you will pay with your blood.†However, Manchester’s leading Imam, Arshad Misbahi, was guilty of no crime when last October he said it was justified to execute sexually active gay men.
Incitement to Gay Hatred is not about censoring people, it is about encouraging others to kill people. Again it is simply about saying homophobia is as unacceptable in this society as is racism or religious hatred. Yes these battles are draining; infuriatingly slow to be won and have the most unlikely of opponents, but it is a real fight against homophobia, one which is vital to the LGBT community and to our claims to be a tolerant, just and equal society.”
Nick Henderson,
LGBT Spokesperson and Policy Co-ordinator, Scottish Socialist Party
Brandon85
Good post, Nick. If Hate Laws are fascists when it deals with gay people, then it’s also that case for people of various religion or races. Be consistent. If you’re going to do away with this, do away with the others.