Tuesday, October 11, 2005

 

Tolerance = Squelching?

That would appear to be the case made by the proposed British "religious hate" law.
The bill outlaws any written material or public verbal comments "that are threatening, abusive or insulting [and] likely to stir up racial or religious hatred." The offense carries a jail term of up to seven years.
Let's see -- "Methodists are wrong, Presbyterians are right" -- could that be construed as "insulting?" I think there is a real failure to understand what religion is all about, and I am not entirely certain of the root of it either.

This assumes that religion is just a particular set of ideas to which one chooses to adhere. The "everything is realtive" left, particularly secular left would certainly think this way, but many religious adherants also think this way. The distinction between religiousity and intellectual conviction is disappearing from both directions. Religious people act less religious as secular people adhere to things like political thought or "environmentalism" with near religous devotion. Under such circumstances, one could see where the idea for such a law would come from.

It's a really bad idea for a really bad law. But unless we begin to address some of the underlying issues, garbage like this will continue coming our way.

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