Religous Intolerance Law

out of interest what does everyone think of this new law about religous intolerance a good idea or not? I think if used correctly it could be a very good idea. But I hope it's not used as an excuse to arrest anyone for spurious reasons. I also hope is used equally to stop muslims persecuting converts to other faiths, as well as to protect muslims from unjust attacks by bigots.

 

hey dude, could you outline what this is all about? what are the ideas behind the law and what is the actually law thats being proposed? sorry to be ignorant but i dont really watch tv and havent listened to the radio in ages..

thanks
love luchi xxxxx

 

david blunkett has preposed a new law along the lines of the racial intolerance law but for discimination on the grounds of religion and not race.

 

meaning that people could be prosecuted for being intolerant of others religions...?

hmm..interesting..i i guess it could be helpful in a way...but would it mean forced tolerance for those involved in extremities that are hidden within the safety confinements of a "religion"?

 

guess so and i would certainly hope so, after all woman beating and rape can no longer be hiddern behind the insitution of marriage

 

hmm, I don't really have any religious intolerance but why should the government tell people that they're not allowed to be intolerant, as long as they're not actually acting on it then they should be aloud to think and talk about whatever they like. I really hate laws like this that try to force people to be more accepting than they really are.

 

such a law would not effect your right to be intolerant as this is protected by your constitional right to freedom of speech, it would only effect you if you discriminated againest someone on grounds of religion. Rather like present laws on race discrimination, it is perfectly legal to hold a racist view but it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of said viewpoint.

 

On paper it's a very noble idea I think, and very necessary. No one should be discriminated against, for any reason whatsoever. However I feel it could be interpreted too loosely, preventing athiests from criticising religion, and also interpreted too harshly, branding many liberal Muslims as extremists. It's a valid law, but I'd rather it was implimented by a government that I trusted, and by a Home Secretary who didn't seem quite so at home in the Third Reich....

 

So... does this mean an end to religiously selective schools?... how can you create schools of only one religion if you will be barred from religious discrimination?... bet you they haven't thought that angle through properly...

Fly...
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I'm not sure how it works with their curriculum, but the catholic school around here does already have people attending from predominantly Islamic races.

 

I go to a Catholic college and there are people from other religions there too

 

Guys, you should really all get your facts straight before commenting on this. The law (be it a good or bad thing) makes it an offence to incite racial hatred, which is an entirely different thing to a law outlawing religious intolerance.

 

What happens with religious education though. Do they opt out or do they have to attend?

 

We all have to attend. But although they call it RE it is more like General Studies.
We have mass which is optional.

 

The problem with religious schools is when the religious indoctrination starts to interfear with the general curriculum... such as the number of schools that are teaching science from a creationist point of view...

However... the good Doc is correct... this is seperate from the issue of inciting religious hatred...

Fly...
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We already have laws against incitement to racial hatred. The Blunkett law announced today is against inciting religious hatred which I assume is what you meant to type!

This gives religious groups the same protections and rights as ethnic groups. It makes sense, I suppose, since inciting hatred on any grounds is unequivocally a bad thing. Though I'm sure existing laws would probably already cover this ground?

To make it clear, it does not stop anyone from criticising any religion in extremely robust terms... but if you denigrate people and incite hatred against them based solely on whatever nonsensical fiction they choose to believe, then that would be outlawed.

For instance, calling religion a "nonsensical fiction" as I just did is perfectly proper. Saying all believers of this nonsensical fiction should be taken out and shot is not.

 

Ooops. Typo :&

 

a couple of months ago I said the government was going to bring in such a law because of intense lobbying and most likely financial incentives from islamists
as I remember I was told this wouldnt happen

simular laws have already come in in other parts of the world and have been used to silence critics of islam

and this to a backdrop of ken livingston welcoming a man who wishes to kill homosexuals to keep society clean from perverted elements


READ THIS ARTICLE
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/07/11/do1102.xml
excert
In a recent television panel, Iqbal Sacranie explained why the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the organisation he leads, had pushed for this legislation. The British should be allowed not to believe in Islam, he said (thanks, Mr Sacranie!), but they should not be permitted to “criticise” it.

Ken Livingstone has gone even further. On Wednesday, the Mayor of London welcomed to City Hall the Qatari divine Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, according to the MCB “an Islamic scholar held in great respect throughout the Islamic world”.

Basing his teaching on Islam’s holiest texts, Dr al-Qaradawi has urged his fellow Muslims to beat their wives; to use child suicide bombers to kill female and infant civilians; to murder Jews, homosexuals and British servicemen; and to colonise, desecrate and usurp Christian Rome.

Mr Livingstone said that the newspapers that had condemned Dr al-Qaradawi for such views “showed why this legislation [Blunkett’s] is necessary”. It was the critics of Dr al-Qaradawi’s beliefs, Mr Livingstone insisted, who were, as the Muslim Association of Britain put it, “the image of evil”. Dr al-Qaradawi, a mainstream figure in a major religion, had endorsed Jew lynching and wife beating: Mr Livingstone seemed to imply that, like Islam, such activities should therefore be above criticism.

This brings us to the nub of the issue: the fact that Islam’s teachings are completely unlike those of other faiths. The Government shows no sign of understanding this. Defending his proposed legislation, Mr Blunkett, for instance, said: “It applies equally to far-Right evangelical Christians as to extremists in the Islamic faith.” But what “far-Right evangelical Christian” has ever proposed or endorsed anything as horrifying as what the moderate Muslim regards as normal?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/07/11/do1104.xml

 

I would have to argue that making a law out of this is absurd. Firstly, how do you enforce such a law and secondly what grounds are there to make such a law.

the first point explains itself but the second I'd best expand on:

If I hate a group of people it's my prerogative to try and get other people on side with me, for the people who are either part of or defending that group it's their prerogative to stop the hatred. NO MATTER WHO IS RIGHT OR WRONG IN THIS SITUATION NEITHER GROUP SHOULD BE TOLD THAT THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT.
This is basically what we're talking about, outlawing certain conversations/lectures.
I may well not agree with what these people say but I'll defend their right to say it. It's only what we start hurting people that things have gone too far and violence has a set of laws already.

On exactly the same grounds I'm heavily opposed to the incitement of racial violence and the blasphemy laws. I'm not a Christian, a racist or a Muslim hater but I still believe they have the right to speak openly about their opinions in what is supposedly a free country, if you want to live in a country that restricts your right to express your views go live in Zimbabwe.

 

sorry about the overly aggressive reply, nothing personal, showmet, but it's just one of those things that really pisses me off.