Category: The Enchanted Ones

The Guardian reports, in a story called Lords defeat for religious hatred bill, that the House of Lords voted against the British government’s Religious and Racial Hatred Bill. The opposition to the Bill crossed party lines with many Labour peers joining Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in opposing the Bill. The government can still override the Lords and pass the Bill into law in the Commons, which is a special process to break deadlock between the two House of the British Parliament. For background, here are the British government’s explanatory notes on the Bill as passed in the House of Commons, and here is the Bill after the amendments. These links to debate and more debate on the amendments in the House of Lords bring up the Hansard text. The quality of speeches is excellent. This level of debate makes Canadian MP’s sound like trolls.
I like a passage from Lord Onslow’s speech:

I also suggest that, in the well-established case of a Shia cleric who ensured the conviction of a young girl, aged 18, for pre-marital sexual intercourse, he not only advocated her conviction but he also went and put the noose around her neck. I do not know about noble Lords, but I personally find that detestable. It is meet to be detested, and should be by every single person in this Chamber. What this Bill could do—although I am obviously open to correction—is to say that I could be prosecuted for saying that it was a detestable habit and that the man who did it was an odious human being. I would say that with intent, and mean every single word. I give that as one example.
At Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that religion had actually been defined. Now there is, as we know through evidence of it, a religion involving witchcraft and the mutilation of small boys. Their torsos were thrown into the Thames. I know that these things are illegal, but it seems odd to me that I cannot hate them. I may have misinterpreted the Bill; I may have it all wrong. But I am advised that I have not. Can the Minister clear my mind, and either accept the amendment or something like it in whatever form the Bill takes? Or can she explain to me that there is no such provision in the Bill and that I am quite entitled to go on hating Shia clerics who pull the legs of young girls dangling in a noose outside Tehran?

(This updates my entry on Behzti and Mr. Bean from last December, and other entries about religious freedom, freedom of conscience and free speech).
Stories about a Bill before the British Parliament for a Racial and Religious Hatred Act were prominent in the feed from Butterflies and Wheels in my aggregator yesterday. A government Bill, having made it through the Commons, is being debated in the House of Lords where it is facing opposition. Comedian Rowan Atkinson’s speech to a House Committee was reported in the Times on October 21, 2005 – “Hatred Bill Panders to Minorities”. The Times interviewed Atkinson for another story October 23, 2005. One of Atkinson’s points was that the Bill would give fringe groups like Wiccans and Satanists new standing to promote themselves as religions, and give fundamentalists (Sikh, Christian, Muslim) a new tool to oppress their critics. As to the Wiccans et al, they are looking forward to the enactment of the Bill, excited, as the story in the Times puts it. Will it be a crime to say that modern Wicca and Satanism are, like Scientolology, fraudulent inventions promoted by writers, performers and entrepreneurs?
The various stories say that the Bill is opposed by a non-partisan coalition in the House of Lords, including a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey. It has been criticized by many religious leaders. The old New Leftist writer Bernard Crick, writing in the Guardian online reports on a public lecture by Atkinson and the activities of the Citizen Organising Foundation, a community education group in East London – This age of fanaticism is no time for non-believers to make enemies – without discussing the Bill. The Bill was the subject of a comment in the Times October 23, an essay by Christopher Hart called God Save the Heretic.
I wonder if the religious groups that favour this legislation have thought about what should happen to religious leaders who use their churches and mosques to denounce feminism, homosexuality and secular values?
Today, the Wikipedia feature entry is about the French law banning conspicuous religious symbols in schools.
The ironies of politics – a conservative French government protects secular values. A self-styled progressive Labour government in England promotes cultural diversity by giving fundamentalists (and the fuzzy fringes of religion) a stick to beat their critics.