Civitas

... what the Government in fact is up to, and knows itself to be, is re-paying an electoral debt it incurred to a religious group whose support it courted by promising to enact the bill and who want it enacted so as to gain thereby for its religious beliefs and practises immunity from public criticism.

As such, the Government is being disingenuous in purporting to say that only religious believers will be protected, not their beliefs.

Warrant for the suspicion is provided by the clarification of the Government’s legislative intention in introducing the bill that is to be found on the Home Office’s official website.

In a section there entitled, ‘Incitement to Religious Hatred Frequently Asked Questions’, the Home Office explains that, among the forms of expression that the proposed bill will not make a legal offence, is the ‘publishing or reading from religious texts such as the Bible or the Qur’an’. It then immediately goes on:

‘Of themselves these activities do not meet the criteria of the offences. However, if a person were to use threatening, abusive or insulting words/actions with the intent or likely effect that hatred would be stirred up whilst undertaking the actions listed above, then by definition, they could rightly fall into the scope of the offence.’

What the Home Office appears to be saying here is that, while quoting from the Bible or Qur’an may never legitimately be construed as an incitement to religious hatred, once the proposed bill is enacted neither work may lawfully be quoted from should such quotation be combined with any further utterance intended or likely to stir up hatred of the group which regards the quoted text as sacred.

If that is not designed to protect these books from criticism, what is?

Of the two texts in question, and I shall refrain from specifying which, one contains the following statements about adherents of another religion which I shall again refrain from specifying further, beyond saying many live in this country:

‘And thou wilt find them the greediest of mankind…Evil is that for which they sell their souls… Because of the[ir] wrongdoings … and of their taking usury… and of their devouring people’s wealth by false pretences, we have prepared for …them … a painful doom…. They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. The hatred is clear from what they say, but more violent is the hatred which their breasts conceal…. In truth, th[ey] are an open enemy to you. … Fight against such of those … until they pay for the tribute readily, being brought low… Many are the[ir religious leaders] ..who defraud men of their possessions. . They spread evil in the land.’

According to the Government’s own clarification of its proposed bill, it is to be lawful for a religious leader of the group who regards as sacred the text from which these quoted words come to quote them before an assembly of co-religionists.

It could, however, be an offence for anyone else to quote these words with a view to suggesting that their being quoted by such a religious leader before a group of co-religionists would be likely to stir up in them a hatred of the religious group about whom the quoted words speak.

This is because this suggestion seems not at all unlikely to stir up hatred of the religious group who accept the quoted words as holy writ in all to whom it made who either belong to the religious group about whom the quoted words speak or who have a hatred of religious hatred.

That is why I say that, in announcing its intention to press on with this particular piece of legislative folly, the Government seems hell-bent on driving us all stir crazy!