We’re about to pour back into the House of Lords after the Easter break. What are going to be the hot issues?
Undoubtedly one is the failure to insert a specific free speech clause in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill on Wednesday. An amendment to rectify this has been tabled by Lord Waddington among others and will be voted on.
The laudable intention of the Government is to outlaw homophobic hatred but as has been pointed out in innumerable messages from Christian and gay groups as well as by “consensual adults who enjoy safe and kinky lifestyles”, the wording of the Bill is sufficiently vague to allow serious censorship of expression.
This is not the first time that the threat of censorship has come up in proposed legislation. To my mind there are two key questions: when does ‘offensive’ speech become incitement to criminal action and who decides what is offensive and what isn’t?
Let’s take the last first. Offensive speech is a really subjective notion – what offends you may not offend me, so why should you be able to curtail what I watch or listen to? Offence may be the (small) price we pay for a democratic society?
Incitement can only be judged if there is a clear connection in space and time between words and criminal action. So the famous example is that to shout ‘fire’ falsely in a crowded theatre is incitement because in the ensuing panic people are bound to be hurt. To do the same thing on the street is quite different because the chances of panic and injury are so much less. The essential component of incitement is whether or not one can avoid the consequences of speech – for exampe, you can choose not to buy an ‘offensive’ book or pay to watch an ‘offensive’ film.
Freedom of expression is such a vital right because it is the cornerstone of democracy. For this reason alone we have to be fiercely watchful about any censorship creeping into our legislation, however well-intentioned the desire to protect vulnerable groups may be.
I for one will vote with the Waddington amendment to ensure free speech is heavily protected.
I note that Christian groups lobbied on this. Their continued interest in issues affecting gay people continues to puzzle and depress me in equal measure.
You can’t outlaw hatred, it is an emotion. This is not a pedantic point but crucial to the raison d’etre of criminalising those who may have a justifiable reason for their feelings. My mother hated all Germans to the day she died because of what she and her family went through in WWII, for example. It could be argued that sending school children to Auschwitz perpetuates an ‘offensive’ image of Germany.
There really are too many examples to continue going down this road of thought-policing. If this gvt wants us to learn how to respect an alternative viewpoint they should look at their own behaviour amongst themselves, first.
Furthermore, there are questions on usefulness and reciprocity. The N word is a euphemism that, for now, can safely be used by black and white people. Yet ‘nigger’ is deemed offensive when used by white people referring to a black person, though black people seemingly have some immunity when using it themselves. I wouldn’t use the word except in a context such as this debate nowadays though, as a young girl, the only meaning it had to me was as the name of a dog in a film, and a description of a paintbox colour.
Queer is another example of a word reclaimed by the group who originally took it to be a pejorative term. The question is whether such laws aim to protect, or enable groups by disabling the rights of others.
But how far should we have to tolerate someone effing and blinding to their hearts content ?? I would see that as incitement, since if they don’t shut up after several polite requests, and a couple of less polite ones, I’m going to punch their front teeth out…
Surely the Protection from Harassment Law is enough. Why does each and every ‘oddity’ of society need to have its name written next to a law in order to protect it?
What’s next? Incitement to hatred against ugly people? How about people with beards? Men who have long finger nails?
It could and would go on and on as there will always be someone who feels left out by the law and insists on having their specialness protected from hatred.
What a wimpy lot we’ve become.
Freedom of speech is, indeed, a valuable cornerstone of democracy, but I think there are a few other things to be considered.
One of the provisions against purely free speech that the government provides is protection against libel or slander. It is considered reasonable that I can seek damages against, for example, a newspaper that prints false allegations which damage my public standing. Homosexuals, like certain other classes of people, suffer from continual slander as a class. While Christians can claim that the bill might unfairly expose them to criticism or prosecution, I feel it must be pointed out that Christians do not suffer from the same class-based prejudice built into society. The social circumstances are not such that I could write “Archbishop Williams is an Anglican; Anglicans are believed by many to be bigoted, backwards-looking and suspicious of musical theatre, which is probably why they do not like gay people” (none of which I believe, I must make clear) and expect it to have the same weight as if I were to write “Lord Smith is a homosexual; homosexuals are often alleged to be promiscuous, amoral and steeped in sin, which explains his infection with HIV.” Both of these are baseless character smears, but one has much better traction in our society because of the existing prejudices – prejudices that are not helped by bigots claiming the protection of the pulpit.*
Human rights laws have two justifications. The first is aspirational and speaks of the regard we wish to hold other human beings in, and of setting a standard by which all truly are considered equal. The second is pragmatic, accepting that this world does not and perhaps will not exist, and tries to right some wrongs. As difficult as it is for those in the majority and the richer classes to accept, at times the law will, in righting a historical wrong, appear to tilt itself against them simply because they have become used to the downhill slope.
Religion is an important part of people’s lives, but it is not an excuser of all evils. It was not so long ago that people would dredge up oft-forgotten passages from scripture to show that blacks were inferior or, later, that even if not inferior that they should still be kept separate. There is stronger support in the Bible for the notion that a husband should be allowed to beat his wife than there is for the notion that homosexuality is a mortal sin, yet we are not afraid as a society to say that such religious views are strongly frowned upon.
The Christian church has been free for hundreds of years to pluck verses from its texts and cast aspersions on the characters of a group of individuals without any form of recourse. Tolerance is indeed a noble virtue for a government to have, but we should be careful not to develop too much of a tolerance, such that we lose sight of what is reprehensible. Tolerance is one thing, but condoning hateful speech or ascribing rational, religious or moral virtue to its utterance is quite another. We should be aiming for a society where the term “fag” is treated like the terms “nigger” or “kike,” as an odious noun that marks its speaker out as a bigot. We should be aiming for a society where homophobia is as intolerable as anti-Semitism.
This is not so much to speak out against the need to protect the rights of bigots to be bigots, but to raise the idea that the boundary of harm is breached much earlier than you suggest. The exact line at which things are considered harmful is, inevitably, going to be arbitrary, but it is surely worth taking into consideration the fact that, as the majority, Christians in this country have been historically quite able to look out for themselves, whereas homosexuals are historically a slandered, persecuted and disparaged minority, and asking whether the government’s role should not be to look out for the little guys.
*(I must note, as an addendum, that although I tried to find Lord Smith’s views on the bill or the Waddington Amendment that I could not, and do not intend in mentioning him to insinuate that he does or should share my views on this issue.)
The question is easy to answer – the aim is to enable groups to live their lives in the same relative freedom that you enjoy as a member of a privileged member of a global minority, by taking away your historical right to harm by insult and discriminate against them. I am not saying you would ever do such a thing, but in that case, such a right is not one it is conceivable you would miss, is it?
The psychology of “reclaiming” words like “nigger” and “queer” is complex, and again it shows your inexperience in dealing with the daily grind of discrimination that you fail to comprehend how words can shift in and out of fashion in this manner. A word can indeed be perceived as a rallying cry in one mouth and a pejorative in another, and that is something that we must live with even if it strikes us as unfair that we should avoid the N word whether we intend it with racist connotations or not. We have immense amounts of cultural privilege as white people that is simply invisible to us until we dare to walk a mile in a black person’s shoes. If the only price we pay to salve our conscience is having to watch our tongues, even if those around us are letting theirs run loose in an effort to work out their cultural issues, then we are getting off lightly indeed.
Stuart, the letters and e-mails I’ve had from Christian groups are genuinely concerned about the chilling effect the Bill might have on free speech. A couple of years ago these same groups opposed a ‘religious hatred’ clause for the same reason. Surely this isn’t depressing?
ladytizzy, you’re right about thought crimes – but I would also argue that we shouldn’t criminalise ANY speech regardless of whether or not it is, in your words, ‘justifiable’.
And this answer brings me on to Going underground: if some one pours out obscenities in your house, you can ask them to leave; if it occurs in their own house, you can leave. If however this behaviour takes place in an enclosed public space (theatre) or even on TV before the watershed (which broadcasts directly into pepoples’ homes) there are ALREADY adequate laws and standards concerning public order and public decency to make this an offence. The key factor here is that if one can’t AVOID such language then it is deemed to be disturbing the peace.
So the criterion is the CONTEXT, not the content, in which the speech takes place!
A good example of creating a law for political expediency, Baroness D’Souza. Ditto the fox hunting/hunting with hounds law; if it was demonstrably cruel (whether it was is not the point here) why not prosecute for animal cruelty, or beef up the existing animal welfare laws if there was a glaring loophole?
I understand the earlier point made by Lord Norton re the Salisbury convention in that the HoL do not interfere with manifesto pledges. However, if the gvt don’t fulfil their pledges first time round then I think it is fair game for the HoL to ignore the convention. In any case, we now have a ruling that a manifesto pledge is worthless, so scrap the Salisbury agreement altogether.
Tiz
Surely just as the religious hatred legislation did not rule out criticism of religion or the telling of religious jokes, the gay hatred legislation does not rule out criticism of gays or the outlawing of gay jokes. To have anti-hatred legislation for religious groups and not for gay groups strikes me as a thoroughly imbalanced and unfair state of affairs. Surely the Baroness wishes to protect all individuals from hatred, fear of violence and harassment? If it worked for religious hatred, why not anti-gay hatred? The tone of the Baroness’s blog entry suggests that some groups are more equal than others.
I am happy that, at least some people, can see that our freedom of speech is being eroded and this needs to be protected. There are a lot of things about this bill – especially the ‘thought crime’ implicit in holding images of consenting adults (often merely the holders themselves) involving BDSM. We are in a pivotal stage regarding underwritten freedoms in this country especially where the research regarding the underwriting of parts of this bill is concerned. I would draw your attention to this as the reality as opposed to the shoddily formed clauses within certain aspects of that bill – which, indeed, do amount to ‘thought crime’.
http://cjb.podbean.com/
It is a sad day for free speech and a sad day for criminal justice. Once again pressure groups and bad research falls foul of common sense and freedoms of expression.
Baroness D’Souza,
On a more serious note, I don’t see why you think it is ‘depressing’ that the laws on religious hatred weren’t passed, and I think some clarification is required.
If such laws were passed, I think there is a real danger, as Rowan Atkinson pointed out, that some of his ‘jokes’ might have fallen within the ambit of the legislation. It is all very well saying that the law would not be used for these ends – this is what they said about RIPA..
Indeed, would groups like the Scientologists exploit such ‘religious hatred’ laws to prevent legitimate criticism and investigative journalism into their practices ? Like ‘going underground’ I detest hearing people blaspheme on public transport, but that is because I think they are being discourteous and ill-mannered, rather than any particular religious belief. I’m not sure I would want any specific punishment to attach to it.
On a related point, I would make the following observations. People of religion are often castigated as being ‘homophobic’ if they are opposed to gay sex. Well, I suspect that they would be equally opposed to a heterosexual like me fornicating outside marriage, so I am not entirely sure that this is an accusation that really stands up.
The issue was also raised last year of guest-house operators who didn’t want to admit gay people being forced out of business. As a liberal I can see how gay people might be offended and inconvenienced at being ‘turned away’. But these establishments aren’t hotels, they are private dwellings, and I’m not sure we benefit by asking them to meet the much more stringent legal requirements set for hotels.
If a guest-house had a sign outside saying ‘No smokers or children’ that would merely be a statement of their preferences and I would be free to go elsewhere if that didn’t meet my requirements. But if I see a sign saying ‘No dogs or Welsh people’ am I therefore to conclude that I am a dog ??
Well, okay, in my case I am Welsh and a dog [albeit an Irish Wolfhound], but my point is that a sign saying that gay people could not be accommodated doesn’t necessarily mean that they are ‘hated’ [which is what homophobic means], merely that they might have to look elsewhere.
Phil Roberts,
If there was an award for Political Correctness, I would nominate you.
‘and asking whether the government’s role should not be to look out for the little guys’
This bleeding heart attitude of always backing the underdog, assuming that such a stance must surely be the right one, is why Britain is in such a mess now.
This attitude has become so endemic in society, particularly amongst the liberal elite, and is no less than an infectious disease wiping out logic in its path.
I believe it began with multiculturalism brainwashing and resulted in at least two generations becoming unable to come to decisions using their own logic and judgements, but instead basing them on what they believe society as a whole would deem is right and proper.
Individuals suffering from this disease seem almost smitten with their speeches and arguments as though they are visualising pats on their own backs from those they ‘defend’ and rounds of applause from fellow sufferers. Maybe it is due to a deeply personal need to be seen as underdog saviours. Maybe the sufferers didn’t have many friends when they were young. Maybe it’s even a psychological disorder. Who knows?
I disagree with you on allowing discrimination in the provision of goods and services. It is different from someone having a specific viewpoint.
Should it be a crime for someone to say that they do not like gay people, or black people? No. It would be nice if people didn’t think like that, but people, ultimately, should be free to be discrimatory in their attitudes and beliefs.
However if you are someone who provides goods or services to the general public then it is fair for the State to say that you cannot discriminate against certain minority groups. Once you step from the private sphere (one’s attitudes) into the public sphere (the marketplace) then it is valid for the State to regulate that.
Thank you, Baroness D’Souza, for opening up this debate for us, and exploring this issue with us. I think that it’s another good thing about this blog. Without it we wouldn’t have a clue that this debate was going on, and we certainly wouldn’t have any input into it.
Baroness D’Souza:
> I would also argue that we shouldn’t criminalise ANY speech regardless of whether or not it is, in your words, ‘justifiable’.
I would like to compliment you on this statement. Freedom of Expression does not (as some seem to think) mean “Freedom to say things that *I* agree with, but not anything else”.
Britney British’s post above is, ironically, a perfect example where she (I presume) uses pejorative expressions like “bleeding heart attitude”, “liberal elite”, “brainwashing”, “disease” and so on, as Voltaire said “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
The Government wishes to pass legislation that will make it a crime to engage in types of Freedom of Expression that they don’t like, even if it does not cause harm to others, based on the concept of Thought Crime: “If they can’t think about it, they won’t do it”.
The fact that such laws will be so broadly worded that many innocent people will be caught up in their legal “drift net” along with a few who might be a threat, seems to have escaped them.
PS Britney British “Who knows?” Obviously not you, since you’re more interested in asking irrelevant but loaded rhetorical questions than actually bothering to think about the subject and the dangers that we face from the loss of our basic liberties that we “bleeding hearts” in the “liberal elite” are trying to prevent.
With regard to my comment at 5.42pm, I should say that it was in response to an earlier comment by Bedd Gelert and not a response to the post itself. Sorry!
I think I have been less than clear!
Mark Shephard – the point is that the religious hatred clause was voted DOWN (thankfully – Bedd Gelert note this is uplifting and not at all depressing!) and so the argument from the Christian groups is if we voted against the ‘religious hatred’ amendment then we should also vote against any homophobic legislation.
Britney British and Phil Roberts – you make some serious points and it would probably take more time than I have to answer in full. However, I really don’t think it is merely political correctness to protect minorities? Censorship ALWAYS starts small and even innocuously and grows fast.
I have worked in some of the most repressive regimes in the world and censorship is the first tool of a would be dictator. Once you can control both information flow and the freedom to express views you can boast the beginning of a genuinely totalitarian regime.
ladytizzy – not quite sure what point you wish to make but if it is that there are already enough laws to control citizens behaviour then I wholly agree with you. One question one ought to pose if this; do laws alone make for a more gentle and humane society and my answer is absolutlely NO.
The thought of a law that seriously curtails Freedom of Speech scares me.
BD…absolutely! Laws do not improve people’s attitudes towards homosexuals and a new law which singles out homosexuality will only make things worse. Do they want to be singled out or do they want to be treated as everyone else?
Homosexuality has only been legal for forty years. Are we not expecting too much too soon? And how great is the problem anyway? All the homosexuals I’ve ever known are doing very well for themselves and not suffering any persecution or threats of violence.
Of course, there is a growing problem in Britain and the rest of Europe as more and more muslims arrive who have not been blessed with forty years of liberal thinking towards homosexuality. The Middle East and South Asia is well known for being homophobic despite homosexual encounters being rife. People arriving from countries where homosexuals are dropped from the highest building, crushed by a falling wall or hung to death, and who may well have witnessed such events, are not going to think diffferently after passing passport control, unless they are gay of course and are escaping persecution. Even third generation muslims are overwhelmingly likely to believe homosexuality is a sin.
This is a problem which will soon reach a head in the British muslim community as more and more muslim homosexuals find the courage to come out within their communities. Maybe the government could be doing more to help these closeted homosexuals and to educate their communities on the importance of treating people as equals. Has the government ever addressed this issue or is it too afraid of upsetting muslims? What a tragedy that would be and what a hypocrisy too considering this proposed legislation. It’s about time the government chose which side to support, liberalism or religious doctrine, as supporting both will inevitably result in clashes being overlooked and people suffering.
You know the old tale of the wind betting the sun it can get the horse rider’s coat off fastest? The wind blows but the man pulls the coat tighter around him. The sun shines and the man takes it off willingly. Surely we should be putting our efforts into changing people’s mentality and not threatening them with punishments for none compliance. Make people want to be nice rather than forcing them.
But like BD suggested, maybe the goverment’s motive is not to make people to be nice to homosexuals. Maybe it’s just wanting to chip away at our freedoms to effect a totalitarian state. Given the evidence elsewhere, I think the latter must surely be the case.
While various provisions were voted down (often for many of the sensible freedom of speech reasons the Baroness indicates), it is my understanding that the 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act made it an offence to stir up hatred against people because of their religion. Consistency in voting irrespective of the changing state of the laws of the land does not make sense to me (ie religious hatred legislation is now law and so this imbalanced state of affairs has to be taken into consideration when deciding your vote for other core excluded groups otherwise you are voting for inequitable freedom of speech arrangements). I hope you will take into consideration the current state of legislation and vote for equity in freedom of speech.
Yes, sorry Baroness D’Souza I mis-read your ‘depressing’ sentence !
Sorry to bang on about this – but if anyone hasn’t seen the film ‘The Lives of Others’, make sure you put it on your ‘To Do’ list.
Baroness D’Souza makes the point about censorship in repressive regimes starts in a small way, and creeps ever upwards..
The recent ‘scope creep’ of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is a strong case in point, and we are sleep-walking to that kind of East German ‘surveillance culture’ and ‘watch what you say, and who you say it to’ culture where one is always ‘looking over one’s shoulder’.
When I said ‘new legislation’ I should have said ‘desire to legislate homophobic hatred’.
Phil Roberts: As a woman, I can assure you I have plenty of experience of the ‘daily grind of discrimination’, despite many laws and guidelines designed to equalise my standing.
As an employer in an SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises), I am freaked out by current and proposed laws on equality when all I want is the best person for the job. I now have the added responsibility of policing chit-chat between employees in case one might be offensive. “Have you thought about joining Weight Watchers?” might be a helpful or offensive question, is an example on which I have to make a judgement.
I have never heard or read the word ‘kike’ before now, and have no idea what it means. I don’t tend to be around people who are disparaging.
Tiz
Stuart, thanks for your thoughtful response to my post.
It links into something which lady tizzy speaks about.
Can we enforce the same level of compliance with ‘equality legislation’ in very small one or two person businesses as for large nationals ?
Everyone should be equal under the law, but I’m concerned that trying to enforce legislation against small guest houses may not achieve the desired result – rather in the manner of the wind vs sun competition in getting the guy to remove his coat. Wider education of society is what is required – not more legislation, in my opinion.
An example of this appeared to be with the refusal to give Catholic adoption agencies on ‘same-sex adoption’. They weren’t seeking to stop other agencies from carrying this out, but they did want a waiver for themselves. The end result would simply have meant fewer adoption agencies, without making any difference to the views of the Catholic Church, or how the law applied to other agencies.
Sometimes a think a little bit of ‘wriggle room’ is required for the conscience of those with faith, however much we may disagree with them – but of course that risks giving an inch and losing by a mile.
Britney British
I’m trying to work out if you’re regurgitating talking points from The Sun or from the Daily Mail, it’s so hard to tell the difference sometimes. You certainly covered all the usual shibboleths: the railing against “multiculturalism” and “liberal elites”, the catch all term “political correctness” (which almost invariably means that the speaker is upset they can’t be rude to someone else) and, of course, the opinions that this country of ours is going to the dogs and that young people today aren’t like you were when you were a wee lad/ladette. If I didn’t know that people like you existed I’d suspect someone had made you up as a satirical character. You don’t happen to own a flat cap, do you?
The argument for making legislation follow rather than lead public opinion is well known, but historically shown lacking. Legislation on race and gender was introduced in this country, and in others, before the public was fully converted into thinking it was a good idea. Opinions, it is true, are even now not totally converted, but then nor are we dealing with a country where overt racism and sexism are tolerated like they were even 40 years ago. If you think homosexuals are asking for “too much too soon” then you are saying that they must accept that they will be belittled, discriminated against and insulted until enough people have been coddled sufficiently so as to voluntarily give up their privilege and allow them to be treated as they are. “We know it’s wrong, but we can’t convince the Catholics, Muslims and Sun Readers – so sorry!” That is, frankly, an unacceptable thing to ask of anybody in our society. If a right is recognised, it must be granted.
Freedom of speech is vital, but let us not forget what we really mean when we talk about it. It does not prove that society is free when I can stand at a religious pulpit and declaim that those who are different from the accepted cultural norm are sinners, particularly not if the religion of the pulpit is the religion of the state. We protect the rights of people to be bigots not because being bigoted is a virtue, but because we feel the state should have limits as to how deeply it can control people’s lives. But the state does limit speech, and society limits speech even further than the state. While the case can be made for the Waddington amendment – and inasmuch as it introduces flexibility in judicial interpretation I would agree with that case – I believe a case can also be made for taking a stand and saying that homosexuals, of all people, are not the powerful establishment whom we must always be free to criticise. I am free in this country not because I can say “God hates fags” — I can say that in Zimbabwe — but because I can say “I disagree with the Prime Minister,” and more because we can drag our ministers in front of cameras and insist that they justify themselves, even if we know they will go off and do what they will anyway.
The line between being a citizen and being a subject is one which the British have always negotiated with the grace of a football hooligan and the bloody-mindedness of a ballet dancer. We have been mindful of our rights since before people invented rights. I fear far more encroachment on these rights from the various Terrorism Acts which purport to protect us from the scary brown people than from any legislation which seeks to right grave historic wrongs, even if in doing so it upsets some entrenched interests. The slippery slope argument is not always without merit, but is the idea in this case that we are embarking on a path that would culminate inevitably with the imprisonment of Archbishop Williams? The bedrock of British pragmatism would halt such a slip before the slope could get its grip on us. I think the danger here is not that we might erode the notions of free speech too much, but that we would not as a society take a sufficient stand against bigotry.
It should be legal to be a bigot, just as it is legal to be a madman who believes that pixies dwell at the bottom of your garden. The government cannot legislate your thoughts. But belief in pixies is far less damaging than bigotry, yet far less acceptable in society. Bigotry should be unacceptable. And as much as people like Britney British complain about this attitude, if it is not led from the top by legislation then where shall it be led from? By the media? By the inherent fairness of human nature? By all the bigots eventually dying in this century or the next?
Those who are discriminated against are tired of people being able to hide behind their religious beliefs when they call them sluts and whores to their faces, of having someone’s choice to be a Christian mean more than their inherent nature as a homosexual. Even in the modern age where it is legal and mostly accepted, a death by a thousand cuts still occurs. While legislation will not and cannot change people’s inherent prejudice, it can hasten the process by which intolerance is weeded out.
Lady Tizzy
I do not wish, in any sense, to marginalise the ongoing struggle that women face in breaking the perpetual patriarchal nonsense that rules our societies. While I am not a woman, I am a subscriber to the notion that Patriarchy Hurts Men Too, and I lament the blatant way in which our society conflates “masculine” with strong and brave and “feminine” with weak and foolish, with alll the ridiculous baggage that brings with it in every layer of life.
But that being said, not wanting to start an argument about whether being black or being female or being homosexual is more of a problem in discrimination terms, they are different beasts (black lesbians, of course, can have it all). The biggest difference is that the disparaging terms used against women are, by and large, the “correct” words. “Woman” and “feminine” are words that, well, apply. That they can also be used as slurs and terms of disparagement is a problem, but it is a different problem from the one considered by homosexuals who seek to reclaim “gay” and “queer”, or blacks who seek to reclaim the N word. (“Kike”, incidentally, is a slur against the Jews, and despite my friendships with Jews ranging from the Orthodox to the obscenely heterodox I know of no movement to reclaim it, although I admit to not listening to much Jewish Gangsta Rap. I may have to make enquiries along this vein.)
As far as negotiating the treacherous waters of legislation, I admit it can be difficult, but I haven’t found many situations where the simple maxim of “your work colleagues are not automatically your friends, so treat them professionally” does not smooth over 99% of conflicts. If you would not tell a client that she should try weight watchers, perhaps you should not tell your secretary either. There are tricky waters to ford, but you should be aiming to not cause offense in the workplace whether you would be legally liable or not. That’s not even common sense, I think that’s just good manners.
Phil Roberts, an interesting and well thought-through post.
“It does not prove that society is free when I can stand at a religious pulpit and declaim that those who are different from the accepted cultural norm are sinners, particularly not if the religion of the pulpit is the religion of the state.”
I don’t profess to be an expert on this point, but surely the C of E position is that ‘..ALL have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God..’, so I am not entirely sure of the point you are trying to make here.
“There are tricky waters to ford, but you should be aiming to not cause offense in the workplace whether you would be legally liable or not. That’s not even common sense, I think that’s just good manners.”
But I think you make Lady Tizzy’s point for her – good manners are important in a small company – it simply shouldn’t be necessary to load up very small businesses with hugely burdensome legislation for such a relatively trivial matter. That should be left for serious issues of Health and Safety or matters of incitement.
Several comments make crucial theoretical, ethical and moral points (ladytizzy, Bedd Gelert, Phil Roberts, Mark Shephard, Britney British etc). I am impressed with the level of discourse!
My contribution is as follows; to assert that free speech merely enables the expression of bigotry is to trivialise this fundamental right. The point about free speech is that it allows differences at any level to be DISCUSSED and resolved round the table – the alternative being settling differences via a duel or more modern equivalents, that is physical violence. The fact that bigotry and/or offfence is protected is to some extent a side issue.
Let me repeat a, probably apochcryphal, story. M le Pen the French extreme right wing political leader was required by French law some years agoto moderate his facist campaigning. In the intervening years recruitment to his party increased significantly due it is claimed to the fact that his more gentle message obscured his party’s true ideology and therefore encouraged the voter to join.
Hate and highly offensive speech are symptoms of discontent in society and we do ourselves no favours by suppressing the expression of that discontent to where it can so easily become murderous violence.
The slipery slope argument is not one to be dismissed lightly.
I believe that democracy is more immune to acts of hate-speech than it is to draconian legislation. Although the desire to stop people saying (dangerously) nasty things about others is worth pursuing, perhaps censorship is not not the way to go about it. The South Australian government has passed some very draconian laws in the overheated debate about public safety we have recently undergone. If taken literally (how else?) they give the authorites, or anyone they appoint, the power to do almost anything to anyone under any circumstances. It is often illegal to complain about certain police activities.
Now, the police want the government to fund them to pay public informants, and to establish a network of the same. I think that a good case can be made for the claim that the reason they are proposing such a move is because there was no great pubic outcry in complaint when the first, small steps were taken in this direction. We ignored the slipery slope danger.
Baroness when you say “Let me repeat a, probably apochcryphal [sic], story.” The word apocryphal meaning doubtful, not genuine, pertains to Apocrypha (Old Testament books not included in the Bible).
Hatred and murderous violence were regarded in pagan times as coming from the eidolon or lower self and were regarded as involuntary actions that needed moderating by the higher self or daemon. Such words or concepts have been lost to us outside of theological science.
To me, everybody should possess a spiritual faith that acts to promote the higher self and constrain the more powerful lower one. Unfortunately the world we live in successfully operates to satiate the animal part whilst starving the spiritual one.
Phil Roberts,
I tried to absorb all that you said but there was so much bumf in your message it fogged my mind. What I did grasp from it though was that you claim political correctness has not gotten out of hand in Britain yet you happily slate me.
I don’t mind though, not a bit and wouldn’t have it any other way. Say whatever you want and I will just chuckle.
Bedd Gelert
Well, presumably my point would rest on the notion that there are more kinds of Christian expression in this country than those which form the official C of E theological position, and that they nonetheless all benefit from Christianity’s official status.
So if you find yourself having to police good manners for fear of litigation, shouldn’t this be a sign that something actually went wrong somewhere? You may call it trivial, but then people called it trivial when they talked about ensuring workers were issued with good chairs. Part of ensuring a safe working environment is taking care of people’s social environment too – and if someone is being made to feel uncomfortable then it’s not unreasonable to expect management to have a duty of care there, any more than is expecting them to provide hearing protection in loud work environments or gloves where manual handling is required. If the only reason you’re taking someone to one side to question their attitude towards the women in the office is the legislation that compels you to do so, that’s better than if you’d just decided to let it slide.
Baroness D’Souza
I think you present a false dichotomy here. Bigoted speech is not an alternative to violence, but more often a precursor to it. Homosexuals and those who are bigoted against them do not find themselves often in situations where they are sitting around a table carefully stacked with a broad selection of views. Moreover, bigotry against homosexuals is not a new thing. By now, honestly, we get the points they’re making. Yes, gays are sinners in that most deliciously lascivious of ways, that of the sexual pervert, they’re amoral, they spread diseases, God’s plan for sex doesn’t include them, they’re paedophiles and rapists and if a gay person sees your penis in the shower then he will automatically want to have sex with you. We must be stopped! What is to discuss?
What grievances do people have against homosexuals that simply must be aired? What can homosexuals do, as a class, that would mitigate their concerns? What possible recourse have homosexuals got except to go about their lives and try to live them as best they can? We can’t prevent people from taking the specific and extrapolating out to the general, such that if one gay person is a flamboyant slapper who gets AIDS then that means they all are wheras straight people can do what they like and the perception of the inherent behaviours of the orientation remains rooted in 1950s public service broadcasts. What are homosexuals supposed to say when trying to reason people out of positions that they did not reason themselves into? And why should the burden be on homosexuals to engage these bigots in conversation rather than simply to tell them to shut up so that they can get on with their lives?
Protecting a minority against violent speech is protecting them against physical violence.
Britney British
While I would love to take credit for the rich depth of fog your in mind, I’m afraid I must defer. It was like that when I found it.
Am I the only one here to see the irony within Phil Roberts admiration for laws passing the buck of self-responsibility (or ‘good manners’) onto employers (NOT management), and his unpleasant, and now unnecessary, attacks on Britney British?
The commentary between Phil and Britney is revealing, in the context of the original post. Neither will change the other’s mindset no matter how long this thread is continued, and opinions about each other may well spill into future posts, as is common on many blogs and forums.
If this banter was to occur on my premises, I would have to issue both of you an official warning to stop the baiting.
We’re all good now, eh? Job done.
Love and peace, Tiz
Apologies for html error, above, resulting in a winking smiley rather than a right-hand round bracket!
[Phil Roberts]
“Bigoted speech is not an alternative to violence, but more often a precursor to it.”
Sorry, sir, but now you are heading into the ‘thought-crime’ zone. Someone hasn’t actually done anything violent, but they are clearly thinking about it, so we must dive in and arrest them ‘pre-crime’ in a Minority Report style. Sorry, but if you want to live in an East-German style crypto-thought-police state that is up to you, but please don’t inflict it on the rest of us.
“Yes, gays are sinners in that most deliciously lascivious of ways, that of the sexual pervert, they’re amoral, they spread diseases, God’s plan for sex doesn’t include them, they’re paedophiles and rapists and if a gay person sees your penis in the shower then he will automatically want to have sex with you.”
If having this sort of persecution complex makes you feel more important, then that is fine by me. But I would argue [because I’ve been at the end of it] the criticism from Christians is just the same for heterosexuals who choose to have sex outside of marriage.
Yes, there are some space cadets in America who do try and provoke the gay community – but most of the time in this country if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. But then I suspect you would not really want that would you, as you wouldn’t have anything to complain or be able to feel professionally ‘victimised’ about.