I should first apologize to my reader for the unfortunate topic of this
essay, and the unedifying treatment which it requires. Left to myself,
I would never address this subject, as being full of folly and lies. I
only do so because it has become a topic of political significance in the
UK in 2004/5 AD. I shall postpone clearly expressing my own views until
the end of this document.
Legislative Proposal
The proposed law, as I understand it, purports to make it an offence for
a person to make any remark regarding some religious conviction, belief
or practice which - intentionally or not - offends someone else, who then
claims that it would tend to cause others to hate them because of their
religious affiliation.
I shall limit myself to address a more restricted law and attempt to
show that even this is harmful both to society and to individuals and so
is unjust. This law is:
A due penalty will be imposed on any agent convicted of
explicitly inviting, encouraging, advising or directing an audience
of one or more people
to hate, detest, resent, or account as sub-human any target person
or group of persons
identified by any belief, conviction or practice
that both the agent and the target can be shown to have represented
as being "religious" in character.
It would always be possible for anyone accused of infringing this law to
claim that they did not accept that the group they targeting was characterized
by a religion. So, unlike the proposed statute, this law would exclude
the conviction of someone who incited the hatred of Bahi's but who never
claimed or admitted that this was a religion. Similarly, someone who incited
the hatred of abortionists would not be covered by this law, as - to my
knowledge - no abortionist or group of abortionists has ever suggested
that their ethic and practice either amounts to a religion or are any more
characteristic of a religion than any other aspects of their lives. Even
such a weak law, I shall argue, is harmful both to society and individuals
and so unjust.
Textual Analysis
The first step is to look at the three headline words and to consider both
their substantive meaning and their emotive significance.
Incitement
This means encouragement, but with connotations of annoyance. So I am incited
to speak abruptly to someone if they abuse me. On the whole, one is only
incited to do intemperate things: by being irritated beyond the point at
which one can maintain one's equanimity.
Obviously it is good to incite someone
to virtue. Obviously, it is bad to encourage and support someone in vice.
I contend that the word "incitement" is used to describe the proposed
statute in order to insinuate that "Incitement to Religious Hatred" is
wrong because (minor premise) it is a form of incitement, and (major premise)
all incitement is wrong.
Religious
This is a very difficult word. In a secular state, any-one can claim (and
on what basis could their claim be refuted?) that any practice or belief
or conviction is religious. If necessary, they can found their own
personal religion in order to bolster this assertion. Unless Officers of
the State are going to get involved in the question of the "truth of religion",
this gambit cannot be countered. In practice, what is liable to happen
is that some list of "State approved religions" will be drawn up, either
formally or informally. I do not wish to consider the possible ramifications
of such an illiberal policy in detail, but I fear that large, politically
influential, groupings will have little trouble getting registered while
small, politically insignificant groupings will find it impossible.
I contend that the reason that the word "religious" is used in the description
of the new statute is two-fold.
It is used to pander to a substantial number of people who do identify
with each other on the basis of common beliefs, sentiments, attitudes,
convictions, ideology and
practices, simultaneously asserting that this mutual identification and
its characteristic forms are "religious" in nature. These people believe
- rightly or wrongly - that the proposed laaw will protect them from annoyance,
irritation and offence.
It is used to limit the extent of the law. To outlaw "incitement to hatred"
in general would make it illegal to "incite the hatred of": politicians,
homosexuals,
estate agents, members of the BNP and people with ginger hair. At the moment,
none of these groups have any such protection in law.
Hatred
Hatred is always wrong, though sometimes understandable. Even "hatred of
evil" or "of sin" is doubtful, because of what much past experience tells
us it is liable to become. Few people are able to keep a hatred of perceived
sin or crime from spilling over into a disvaluing of those perceived to
be guilty of sin or crime. It should not need to be said that "implacable
opposition to and total intolerance of evil" is not only fine, but absolutely
required of any just person.
I propose that the word "hatred" is used in the description of the new
statute because, as I have already said, hatred is always wrong. Hence
incitement to religious hatred must always be wrong.
Philosophical Analysis
If "incitement to hatred is always wrong", then how can a qualification
by the word "religion" be justified? The present law is itself unjustifiable,
as it makes a special case of "racial" hatred. Indeed, a large part of
the motivation behind this statute is to extend the protection granted
to supposed racial groups: such as the Sikhs, Hindus, Parsees and Jews;
to other groups who no-one supposes to be racially defined: such as Catholics
and Muslims.
Hatred of a person on the ground of his/her religion is no different
from hatred of them for any other reason. Hatred of any individual
- even a thoroughly misguided, foolish, cruuel and vicious individual -
is wrong. On the other hand, an intention to assassinate such an individual
might - in a suitable context - be noble, wise and just: as a lessor of
two evils. In which case, inciting others to commit violence against that
individual might also be justifiable.
Actions, attitudes and intentions must be founded on objective values
of justice if they are to be
right. If not so founded, they are certainly wrong: at least in the sense
of being arbitrary, irrational and incapable of being any more than "correct
by accident".
Hatred of a religion per se, rather than its adherents; or of any political,
bureaucratic, scientific, philosophical, sociological or economic system
is simply childish. Of course, "implacable opposition to and total intolerance
of" might be a different matter.
Political Analysis
It is counter-productive to trade personal insults with others regarding:
their innate characteristics such as:
their hair, eye or skin colour;
their gender, sexuality or handedness;
their talents and weaknesses
their life circumstances, choices and outcomes
their social class or (il)legitimacy
their achievements, successes, failures and disappointments
their philosophy, politics or religion
It is particularly foolish to use insults based on innate characteristics,
as the person being insulted has had little or no opportunity to determine
or modify them. Even where they may not have been inevitable, the influences
that gave rise to them were unidentifiable at the time, let alone controllable!
In extreme cases, such behaviour is cruel and unjust and in many more cases
it is injurious both to the state and to the individual being insulted.
In fact, it is generally beneficial to affirm or tolerate diversity
in society, but not on an indifferentist basis: that differences are
unimportant; but in order to preserve a variety of perspectives and approaches
against the day when they may be needed.
Sometimes, however, irony and satire are valuable in deflating pretentious
individuals, institutions and orthodoxies that rely on irrational deference
for the maintenance of their power. Our Lord was particularly good at wielding
these weapons. While he didn't incite hatred of either the Saducees
or the Pharisees, He did incite the common folk to disdain them.
The practical effects of a limited "incitement to religious hatred" law
The kind of law that I am considering would have the effect of discouraging
people from passing critical comment on any practice, attitude or belief
that they believed to be religious. Hence, it might dissuade people from
condemning the practice of female genital mutilation, or the provisions
of sharia law regarding women who become pregnant outside marriage, or
the Hindu practice of widow immolation etc. Indeed, all infringements of
natural justice committed in the name of religion would suddenly be protected
from adverse comment. Rather than error
having no rights, truth would have no rights whenever religion is invoked.
If some comment was passed by a subject about an object group fairly
characterizing them as proponents of some religious attitude or proposition
that (a) member(s) of the audience in fact found to be detestable, then
the agent might be open to the charge of "inciting religious hatred" -
for he had certainly elicited it in the member(s) the of the audience -
even though he has no personal emotional involvement and did not expect
or wish anyone else to develop hatred for the object group. If such a charge
is excluded by the form of the law, then it will be difficult to rebut
the defence that the remark made was were simply "fair comment" on the
object group and the fact that they were revealed to be hateful by the
commentary was their own fault: for being in fact detestable.
In summary,
unless the law makes it explicit that the offence can only be committed
by a subject who explicitly states that they wish others to hate members
of an object religion:
in which case it would be a trivial matter for even the most vicious agent
provocateur to avoid prosecution;
any subject will be liable to prosecution who:
makes any comment
that might cause another individual
to develop a dislike or aversion
to some characteristic of a religious group.
In order to evade the intrinsic problems of such a law: namely that it
will either have too wide an applicability or no applicability at all,
I fear that the statute will give the Home Secretary the final decision
as to whether a prosecution should proceed or not. Hence, the whole matter
will be dictated by the whim of the Executive, in accordance with political
expediency. If my prediction turns out correct, this statute will have
an intimidatory role: rather similar to that of "section 28", the
legacy of which continues to stifle effective pastoral
care of gay school children to this day.
No-one will be sure that anything they say in criticism of a religion
or religious leader will escape the scope of the statute, so most people
will chose to "play safe" and avoid prosecution by refraining from passing
criticism. This is manifestly contrary to the interests of both the state
and of vulnerable individuals: for irrational malign interests will be
able to claim protection under the law and so evade exposure.
Indeed, much of my web-site could be characterized
by Conservative Catholics as
a self interested attack on the integrity of the Roman Catholic Church,
calculated to produce a hatred of what is portrayed as a dictatorial, bigoted
and oppressive leadership. I admit that many gay-folk do hate Catholics
and the Roman Catholic Church because of its policy towards them and I
cannot exclude the possibility that some persons reading what I have to
say might come to hate either individual Catholics or Catholicism in general.
Hence, I cannot in conscience fully defend myself against a charge that
might be brought under the statute that I fear. The fact that I have no
wish to elicit hatred of anyone or anything will not, I fear, serve me
well.
If the truth be told, I do not fear prosecution under the statute: but
only because I suspect that the Home Secretary would be disinclined to
allow any such prosecution. This is not a protection that I relish.