The European courts are currently having to navigate through an increasingly complex network of rights, and to adjudicate between competing rights and desires when they bump up against each other.
As I was reflecting on this, Daniel Hannan reminded me of an amusing anecdote that Mark Steyn shared last year. After discussing the absurdities in hate crime legislation, Steyn pointed out how the exact same words can simultaneously be legal or illegal depending on who the perceived victim happens to be. He writes,
…the very same words can be proof of two entirely different hate crimes. Iqbal Sacranie is a Muslim of such exemplary “moderation” he’s been knighted by the Queen. The head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal was interviewed on the BBC and expressed the view that homosexuality was “immoral,” was “not acceptable,” “spreads disease,” and “damaged the very foundations of society.” A gay group complained and Sir Iqbal was investigated by Scotland Yard’s “community safety unit” for “hate crimes” and “homophobia.”
Independently but simultaneously, the magazine of GALHA (the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association) called Islam a “barmy doctrine” growing “like a canker” and deeply “homophobic.” In return, the London Race Hate Crime Forum asked Scotland Yard to investigate GALHA for “Islamophobia.”
Got that? If a Muslim says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for homophobia; but if a gay says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for Islamophobia.
Two men say exactly the same thing and they’re investigated for different hate crimes.
That was taken from Mark Steyn’s article ‘Gagging us Softly.’ The value of his article goes beyond merely drawing attention to the absurd situations which arise when the right of free speech is qualified by the right of minority groups not to be criticized. Steyn also shows a more sinister agenda at work once Westerners grow comfortable having the state micro-regulate their public discourse.
Mark Steyn
Across almost all the Western world apart from America, the state grows ever more comfortable with micro-regulating public discourse—and, in fact, not-so-public discourse: Lars Hedegaard, head of the Danish Free Press Society, has been tried, been acquitted, had his acquittal overruled, and been convicted of “racism” for some remarks about Islam’s treatment of women made (so he thought) in private but taped and released to the world. The Rev. Stephen Boissoin was convicted of the heinous crime of writing a homophobic letter to his local newspaper and was sentenced by Lori Andreachuk, the aggressive social engineer who serves as Alberta’s “human rights” commissar, to a lifetime prohibition on uttering anything “disparaging” about homosexuality ever again in sermons, in newspapers, on radio—or in private e-mails. Note that legal concept: not “illegal” or “hateful,” but merely “disparaging.” Dale McAlpine, a practicing (wait for it) Christian, was handing out leaflets in the English town of Workington and chit-chatting with shoppers when he was arrested on a “public order” charge by Constable Adams, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community-outreach officer. Mr. McAlpine had been overheard by the officer to observe that homosexuality is a sin. “I’m gay,” said Constable Adams. Well, it’s still a sin, said Mr. McAlpine. So Constable Adams arrested him for causing distress to Con¬stable Adams….
In such a climate, time-honored national characteristics are easily extinguished. A generation ago, even Britain’s polytechnic Trots and Marxists were sufficiently residually English to feel the industrial-scale snitching by family and friends that went on in Communist Eastern Europe was not quite cricket, old boy. Now England is Little Stasi-on-Avon, a land where, even if you’re well out of earshot of the gay-outreach officer, an infelicitous remark in the presence of a co-worker or even co-playmate is more than sufficient. Fourteen-year-old Codie Stott asked her teacher at Harrop Fold High School whether she could sit with another group to do her science project as in hers the other five pupils spoke Urdu and she didn’t understand what they were saying. The teacher called the police, who took her to the station, photographed her, fingerprinted her, took DNA samples, removed her jewelry and shoelaces, put her in a cell for three and a half hours, and questioned her on suspicion of committing a Section Five “racial public-order offence.” “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark,” declared the headmaster, Antony Edkins. The school would “not stand for racism in any form.” In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said they took “hate crime” very seriously, and their treatment of Miss Stott was in line with “normal procedure.”…
Restrictions on freedom of speech undermine the foundations of justice, including the bedrock principle: equality before the law. When it comes to free expression, Britain, Canada, Australia, and Europe are ever less lands of laws and instead lands of men—and women, straights and gays, Muslims and infidels—whose rights before the law vary according to which combination of these various identity groups they belong to.
What is Christian Voice’s policy position on free speech?
I ask, given CV campaigned so loudly and proudly for the reintroduction of blasphemy laws – having attempted an unsuccessful blasphemy private prosecution equally loudly and proudly in the relatively recent past.
The post suggests a pro-free speech policy, whilst the behaviour the contrary.
We have not done much campaigning to restore the blasphemy laws in England and Wales but we were saddened by their abolition in the same act of Parliament which brought in the homosexual hate-speech law. Our politicians kind of swapped one blasphemy law for another.
We are very much in favour of freedom of speech. People should be free to criticise political, religious and quasi-religious beliefs in decent and temperate language.
We are not in favour of gratuitous insults towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Such things are not a sign of maturity in a jurisdiction, they are a sign of crassness and lack of respect for others, let alone deity.
By the grace of God, since the ruin of the theatre tour of Jerry Springer the Opera, producers are much less likely to stage events containing blasphemy. Even when the National Secular Society ‘celebrated’ the abolition of the blasphemy laws, the poor scared things, who included Sir Ian McKellen and the internet boss at Tesco, did it by reading the infamous ‘Gay News’ poem to each other in a secret location, something they could have done at any time previously.
But wasn’t that because you proposed (threatened) to demonstrate your love of “free speech” by creating “public disorder” at the reading? Much as you did in November 2008 in response to Emily Mapfuwa’s artwork at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art? When you made the rather veiled threat of destroying the artwork in question if it were on public display?
So, do I distill from your response that CV’s policy is, “We are very much in favour of freedom of speech, so long as you don’t say anything to offend our religious sensibilities”?
Are you suggesting that something in our protest at the Baltic Centre was against the law of the land?
And your answer is yes, we paid the costs of the BBC, thank you.
If a leading Muslim cleric declares that Islam is opposed to homosexuality then it would appear that when a gay organisation states that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, they have a pretty good case. That might be why the Muslim view is seen as hate speech, by originating animus against a minority group, and the gay view is not, being recognition of the anti-gay animus.
That being said, I’m not comfortable with laws against speech unless they’re a direct exhortation to violence against persons. The Muslim guys distributing leaflets calling for gays to be hanged, for instance.
A senior Government advisor, Dame Louise Casey, has said Christians in public life should not be allowed to hold traditional Christian views on marriage.
Speaking...
What is Christian Voice’s policy position on free speech?
I ask, given CV campaigned so loudly and proudly for the reintroduction of blasphemy laws – having attempted an unsuccessful blasphemy private prosecution equally loudly and proudly in the relatively recent past.
The post suggests a pro-free speech policy, whilst the behaviour the contrary.
We have not done much campaigning to restore the blasphemy laws in England and Wales but we were saddened by their abolition in the same act of Parliament which brought in the homosexual hate-speech law. Our politicians kind of swapped one blasphemy law for another.
We are very much in favour of freedom of speech. People should be free to criticise political, religious and quasi-religious beliefs in decent and temperate language.
We are not in favour of gratuitous insults towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Such things are not a sign of maturity in a jurisdiction, they are a sign of crassness and lack of respect for others, let alone deity.
By the grace of God, since the ruin of the theatre tour of Jerry Springer the Opera, producers are much less likely to stage events containing blasphemy. Even when the National Secular Society ‘celebrated’ the abolition of the blasphemy laws, the poor scared things, who included Sir Ian McKellen and the internet boss at Tesco, did it by reading the infamous ‘Gay News’ poem to each other in a secret location, something they could have done at any time previously.
But wasn’t that because you proposed (threatened) to demonstrate your love of “free speech” by creating “public disorder” at the reading? Much as you did in November 2008 in response to Emily Mapfuwa’s artwork at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art? When you made the rather veiled threat of destroying the artwork in question if it were on public display?
So, do I distill from your response that CV’s policy is, “We are very much in favour of freedom of speech, so long as you don’t say anything to offend our religious sensibilities”?
No, Emily was opposed to the Baltic Centre blasphemy. Freedom of speech includes freedom to protest doesn’t it? Now you are being selective!
It’s not the protest that I imagine is problematic: it’s the rather gauche threats of vandalism that accompanied the protest.
Have you, incidentally, paid the costs ordered against you for the unsuccessful blasphemy prosecution to the BBC?
Are you suggesting that something in our protest at the Baltic Centre was against the law of the land?
And your answer is yes, we paid the costs of the BBC, thank you.
If a leading Muslim cleric declares that Islam is opposed to homosexuality then it would appear that when a gay organisation states that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, they have a pretty good case. That might be why the Muslim view is seen as hate speech, by originating animus against a minority group, and the gay view is not, being recognition of the anti-gay animus.
That being said, I’m not comfortable with laws against speech unless they’re a direct exhortation to violence against persons. The Muslim guys distributing leaflets calling for gays to be hanged, for instance.
Were not those merely calling for a change in the law, Neil? Or were they advocating vigilante action?