Hate, hatred, race and religion

Ought there to be a law against incitement to religious hatred? This question is currently under discussion in Parliament. It has also been raised  recently by a play about the Sikh community in Birmingham and by Jerry Springer – the Opera. Well-known comedians such as Rowan Atkinson say the proposed new law will stop them making jokes about religion.

Unfortunately, the debates and comments on this topic are often misinformed. One church newspaper, for example, announced the new law will mean it’s illegal to preach the Gospel. The same paper referred to the ‘Religious Incitement Bill’, when in fact there is no such Bill. The government is simply proposing to add two words to the Public Order Bill 1986. For 40 years it has been illegal to stir up racial hatred. The new law will mean it is also illegal to stir up religious hatred.

Oh, exclaim critics of the proposal, that’s ridiculous. You cannot choose your race, but you can choose your religion. It’s obviously wrong to incite hatred against people because of their race, since they can do nothing about it. But they can choose whether or not to be religious, so it’s entirely OK to incite hatred because of religion. The new law, the argument continues, will limit freedom of expression – the freedom of comedians to crack jokes, and the freedom of religious people to criticise each other.

But these arguments too are misinformed and scaremongering. There is absolutely nothing in the government’s proposal that would stop people like Rowan Atkinson telling jokes about religion. After all, there has been a law against stirring up racial hatred for 40 years, but that hasn’t stopped Bernard Manning, and countless others like him, telling jokes about race. Nor will the new law curb freedom of speech in new ways, or the preaching of sermons.

And incidentally it’s not true that everyone can choose their religion. Think of Northern Ireland, for example. ‘Are you Protestant or Catholic?’ someone asks someone else in the old joke. ‘Neither,’ comes the reply. ‘I’m an atheist.’ – ‘Yes,’ says the first person, ‘but are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?’

Here in the Diocese of Oxford, no one tries to stir up hatred against Christians – no one eggs other people on to commit what the police call hate crimes against Christians, for example to attack Christians in the streets, or damage their property, or daub slogans on their churches, or desecrate their graves. But in this part of Britain as elsewhere there are people who try to incite hate crimes such as these against Muslim communities, and at present their vile activities are lawful. It is vital that Christians in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, and throughout the country, should support our Muslim sisters and brothers on this matter. We should say and show that hate crimes based on religion are as totally unacceptable as hate crimes based on race. We should support the Government’s present proposal.

Robin Richardson is a member of St Mary Magdalene Church, Woodstock, and of the Diocesan Committee for Racial Justice.