The text of the Act is here:
Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (c. 1) - Statute Law Database
The only definition I could find was:
Amazingly, it doesn't say what religious belief (and by extension religion) is. So if I believed in the Great Pasta Monster, or whatever, presumably I could then sue my local Italian restaurant for inciting its customers to eat the Holy Symbol Of God On Earth without paying due respect?In this Part “religious hatred” means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
Also, technically, we do still have a blasphemy law - looking this up, it appears that this has been restricted legally to apply to the Church of England only, and will in practice never be enforced despite repeated attempts to trigger it. But, it's still around, which is surprising.
Jedi's made it to the list of religions after the last Census but despite that it's not recognised as an official religion.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2...tion5part3.pdf
the list starts at page 15.. but Jedi Knight is on page 18 .. just under "Other Religions" and above "Heathen"
hmm.. but you know what they say ...
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
Actually... this is kinda scary.
The Jedi Creed
That numbering system's weird - goes from 001 - 119, then 200, 209 (?), then 300-352, then 700, then 896-899...
But, there's almost 200 religions listed there. So which ones are "official" religions then? Is there a list somewhere?
It seems obvious that the best way to demonstrate how dumbass this law is, is to choose a dumbass religion (Barry would say, "more dumbass"), find out some ludicrous restriction it imposes, get a friend to name their pet frog Mohammed or whatever, then bring a case against them for that. Get the case thrown out, get the precedent, appeal it, take it up through the court system to the European Court, then get them to rule that the law is dumbass, so forcing the UK government to change the law.
Of course, I imagine that would take years of work, and a lot of money, to do.
A well timed demonstration at how stupid "religious hatred" laws are....
Richard Dawkins "God Delusion" a very popular book in the UK ; was released in Turkey, where a prosecutor is now investigating whether to prosecute the Turkish publisher for inciting religious hatred.
Turkey may soon be in the European Union, but then the UK has such a law - will it ever be used like this ?
Turkey, alarmingly, seems to be lurching toward sharia principles. It would be a disaster (and perhaps technically impossible) for a country with a legal system such as Turkey's to be admitted to the EU. The ECHR would be simply clogged with Turks appealing decisions taken on religious grounds that breach human rights.
We seem to be going through something of a period of adjustment. People are feeling cut off from certainties and adrift from their moorings, and instead of being told to get a grip and find new moorings, we have racial hatred and religious hatred laws, and non-sensical changes to the Sexual Offences Act, money for faith based schools despite the overwhelming evidence that they are divisive, panic about highly publicised criminal events despite the fact that by all measures the incidence of crime is diminishing leading to half-baked reforms to criminal justice procedure.
Politicians struggle against tremendous odds, if they bother at all, to take the long view of things and are under enormous pressure from half-wits in the media to provide a quick fix for anything that is wrong; on the other hand we are now supposed to applaud them for saying 'I am a conviction politician!', despite the fact that what this leads to is ignoring expensive and carefully prepared reports into things that need to be fixed because the conclusions clash with the 'convictions' of the incumbents.
They also feel the need to lie just to get our support; it seems to be an unspoken article of faith among politicians both here and in the US that it is acceptable to do what is necessary to get elected, even if that means thoroughly misrepresenting yourself, because you can only achieve 'good things' for the country if you are elected. (Richard Dawkins points out the in the US congress, given that politicians are generally drawn from the upper IQ levels of the country, statistically there ought to be at least 50 people who do not believe in any god. As at this time the House of Representatives has only one solitary admitted atheist. Is this because the others daren't make such an admission? If all US politicians told the truth, however, and voters refused to vote for atheists, America would probably have abandoned the second amendment by now.) This is tremendously demoralising for the electorate and leads to a situation where at any given place where more than hafl a dozen people are gathered together you can find at least one person who will admit that they don't bother voting because it doesn't change anything.
No wonder most people struggle to find a moral compass. One beneficial effect of the world situation since September 11 2001 is that it has enabled many people to come to the realisation that we do, after all, have a lot in common with each other and are able (except for a bunch of hardcore moslems) to pretty much unanimously agree that certain things are simply not acceptable.
Like putting someone in jail for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed.
It's Ok.
I've found my tranquillisers now...
YOU'LL NEED TO TYPE LOUDER, JohnS Is 96 And A Bit Deaf
I revisited the blog and had a look at Mr. Vaizey's profile there and elsewhere. Yep, he is a bit of an oddball, and part of Cameron's Notting Hill set. Another son of landed gentry too, I note.
Sadly for him, if Cameron ever gets into power he's unlikely to have much of a Ministerial career. His first bungle as Culture Secretary will have him christened "Royston Vaizey". And that will lead to the entire Tory Cabinet becoming League of Gentlemen characters. Appropriate, given the number of inbred toffs in there.
Amusingly, my OP from this thread is now quoted as commentary on the blog entry linked to in the OP. I've no particular interest in the blog: it's just that I was googling at the time to establish whether Glasgow Council's ban on Life of Brian was still in force, or just urban myth. This page was one of the first returns.
one for Barry
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