Who could possibly be against making inciting homophobic hatred illegal in the UK?
Who, outside of the expected extreme right wing groups, could possibly go out of their way to throw a spanner in the works of the Justice Secretary's decision to make it an offence to rally hatred against people based on their sexuality?
Step forward and accept your prize the Christian Church who are threatening to block it's passage through the House of Lords thereby stopping it dead in it's tracks.
Churchy groups are arguing that Christians who criticised gay sex could be jailed for up to seven years. Far be it from me to suggest the Christians just refrain from criticising homosexual practises thereby not spending the next 7 years eating porridge.
Luckily there was a law passed earlier this year that outlawed religious hatred otherwise anyone could just say the Christian Church is run by a bunch of $%*/>'s and @^&!!~ who need to get their gullible noses out of the Bible and stop spreading their message of hatred against homosexuals. The dimwitted T*$?!*'s.
4 comments:
I'll be honest with you Lucy, I've always been a little queasy about "hate crime" legislation. Not that I don't abhor crimes, but to punish someone for their crimes and also prosecute on top of that for their "thoughts" at that moment, scares me a little. Does someone who assaults a homosexual, or minority deserve a longer sentence than for a man who assaults a women. I don't like the differentiation. Hatred and prejudices exposed to the light tend to peter out, kept in the dark, they fester. That being said, I wish people would realize that people are people.. No more, no less. I prefer to take the message of love thy neighbor, whoever they might be, to heart.
You know, Cody, I always agreed 100% with that take on hate crimes, and expressed it just as you did on dozens of occasions, then I saw this guy on Colbert Report last night. Asked the same question, he pointed out that a hate crime is not just a crime against that person, but an act intended to send a message of fear to everyone like that person. I thought about that a bit.
It DOES seem that a cross burning on a front yard is a warning not just to the residents but also to any black people close enough to know about it. When someone ties a homosexual to a fence and beats him to death with no other motive, I believe that he does intend to send a message to every other gay person in the area.
Now, I'm not so sure about what I believed so firmly. I haven't done an about face, but I obviously have a lot of thinking to do. I thought I'd looked at it from every angle, and here's this guy bringing a whole new aspect to my attention. Imagine being a minority living in an area with a lot of people of the same ethnicity. Someone kills one of you just down the block for no reason other than being like YOU. It was in public and the perps have not been caught. Does it affect your life? I think I'd be a bit more likely to stay inside and hope it's not the pizza delivery guy who did it. I ask myself, why should people half to live like that?
Yep. Lots more to think about.
Now, it seems that the British government doesn't have an objection to the IDEA of hate crime legislation, just extending it to homosexuals because someone else who is ALREADY protected opposes that. This offends my sense of fair play. The legislation could and should be written to allow the thumpers to preach what they want without violating the law because while they are against homosexuality they would still be going too far, by anyone's standard, if they advocated violence.
I've always supported hate crime legislation. It seems pretty clear to me that painting a swastika on a temple should be a more serious crime than doing ordinary graffiti, and so I go from there.
The idea Cody was to close any loopholes. The idea is to cover all bases so all races, faiths or sexualities are covered with no wriggle room.
I see it as a fairly black and white issue, you don't incite hatred against any race, faith or sexual orientation. For the Church to be for a law to stop hatred being instigated at them, but to not be against inciting hatred against homosexuals is dangerous hypocrisy. What other reason could they possibly have other than they want to continue spreading hatred against homosexuals?
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