Government drops plans to prevent incitement to religious hatred
-06/04/05
The Government has dropped plans to introduce measures aimed at preventing incitement to religious hatred, after it ran out of Parliamentary time before the general election.
The leader of the House of Commons Peter Hain announced yesterday that the government was dropping proposed legislation against incitement to religious hatred from its Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill in order to get the rest of the Bill through Parliament.
The announcement was confirmed by Baroness Scotland in the House of Lords.
The laws have been opposed by both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties who would have blocked the Billís progress in the House of Lords if the measures had not been dropped.
Christians were divided over the proposals with some Anglican and Cathoic bishops, and the methodist church amongst those supporting the Government’s plans which were designed to control extremists.
But at the end of last year some conservative Christian groups found an unusual ally in the form of Blackadder star Rowan Atkinson, who formed a coalition of comedians, writers, religious groups and academics in opposition to the new Government Bill. They suggested that the bill would restrict free speech.
Some Christians feared in particular that it might restrict their evangelistic efforts and mean they were unable to criticise other religions. Some also believed that the law on Blasphemy, which only protects Christianity, was sufficient.
However, the stand by the Christian groups – some of whom also opposed the showing of “Jerry Springer: The Opera” on BBC Two – has opened them up to charges of double standards. Conservative Christians, it was suggested, appeared happy to defend their right to criticise other faiths when it suited, but protested vigorously when others raised questions about their own beliefs.
A statement by other faith community organizations, including church leaders, however ‘strongly affirmed’ support for the proposed legislation.
“It is necessary to remedy an unjust and anomalous gap in the present law which was underlined in the 2003 report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Religious Offences” their statement said.
The organisations had for some time been urging the Government to legislate against incitement to hatred on grounds of religious identity.
The proposed legislation had also received strong support from the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Commission for Racial Equality.
The disagreement between Christians at one point became quite vociferous. A senior Evangelical even said that the support by the Methodist Church for the Government’s proposed legislation on religious hatred was “naive”.
The government remains committed to the idea of introducing laws preventing incitement to religious hatred and has promised to reintroduce them if the Labour party wins the election.