UK Religious Hatred Law: How not to report it.
I happened to glance at the front page of the Telegraph today (article: here - registration/Bug Me Not required). There in large letters across the front of their paper is the headline "Now you face jail for being nasty to Satanists", maybe I'm just over sensitive but to me that suggests it is everyone's right to be nasty to Satanists for no reason other than their religious beliefs. Replace the word Satanist in that sentence with Christians/Muslims/Sikhs and publish that headline on the front of a "Quality" newspaper and there would be a serious problem.
The first paragraph in the article goes on to make the situation even worse "Extremist religious groups that advocate child abuse will be given protection under a Bill published by the Government yesterday". While not explicitly linking Satanism to child abuse in the context of the article the implication is clearly there. From further down the page... "Satanists, pagans and atheists would be protected."... again there is a heavy implication here that the religious beliefs of pagans and Atheists as well as Satanists do not deserve respect or protection in the UK which I had always assumed was a reasonably secular society.
I find it highly insulting that Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor of the Telegraph could imply a relationship between every Satanist and Child abuse. While I'm sure there are individuals out there who call themselves Satanists and use this as an excuse to commit acts of unspeakable evil; there are also those Satanists who follow teachings such as those of Anton LaVey. Having actually read some of LaVey's teachings (Presumably unlike Mr. Rozenburg), nowhere have I read any endorsement of Child Abuse or murder. In fact the 9th "Satanic Rule of the Earth" is quoted as "9. Do not harm little children".
Even more insulting is the implication that as an Atheist the Telegraph believes that people should be able to incite hatred against me; for that's what we're talking about here. The law isn't against speaking out against another person's religious belief, it's about "inciting religious hatred". Is it right for someone to stand on the streets telling people I'm evil because of my lack of faith and that I should be hated? From what I've read I can only assume that the Telegraph think so.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of the new law, in fact I feel it's completely pointless. It should be illegal to incite hatred for another person based on any reason; we don't need specific laws protecting incitement of racial or religious hatred. Inciting hatred against someone because you don't like their style of dress or haircut is as bad as for any reason yet there aren't specific laws against this. Yet another example of a specific law brought in when sensible, common sense enforcement of a more general law would suffice.
I can only assume that the Telegraph's biggest bugbear is that when this law comes into affect they won't be able to bad mouth Atheists, Satanists and Pagans in large writing across the front page of their paper.
The first paragraph in the article goes on to make the situation even worse "Extremist religious groups that advocate child abuse will be given protection under a Bill published by the Government yesterday". While not explicitly linking Satanism to child abuse in the context of the article the implication is clearly there. From further down the page... "Satanists, pagans and atheists would be protected."... again there is a heavy implication here that the religious beliefs of pagans and Atheists as well as Satanists do not deserve respect or protection in the UK which I had always assumed was a reasonably secular society.
I find it highly insulting that Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor of the Telegraph could imply a relationship between every Satanist and Child abuse. While I'm sure there are individuals out there who call themselves Satanists and use this as an excuse to commit acts of unspeakable evil; there are also those Satanists who follow teachings such as those of Anton LaVey. Having actually read some of LaVey's teachings (Presumably unlike Mr. Rozenburg), nowhere have I read any endorsement of Child Abuse or murder. In fact the 9th "Satanic Rule of the Earth" is quoted as "9. Do not harm little children".
Even more insulting is the implication that as an Atheist the Telegraph believes that people should be able to incite hatred against me; for that's what we're talking about here. The law isn't against speaking out against another person's religious belief, it's about "inciting religious hatred". Is it right for someone to stand on the streets telling people I'm evil because of my lack of faith and that I should be hated? From what I've read I can only assume that the Telegraph think so.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of the new law, in fact I feel it's completely pointless. It should be illegal to incite hatred for another person based on any reason; we don't need specific laws protecting incitement of racial or religious hatred. Inciting hatred against someone because you don't like their style of dress or haircut is as bad as for any reason yet there aren't specific laws against this. Yet another example of a specific law brought in when sensible, common sense enforcement of a more general law would suffice.
I can only assume that the Telegraph's biggest bugbear is that when this law comes into affect they won't be able to bad mouth Atheists, Satanists and Pagans in large writing across the front page of their paper.
posted by Unknown at 8:32 PM
1 Comments:
Presuming Rozenberg to be Christian, I would like to know what he would think if a law of this type was passed in a Muslim country and was reported with the headline "Now you face jail for being nasty to Christians."
(Not implying anything about Muslims, of course)
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