The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is about creating a new criminal offence (with a maximum penalty of 7 years in jail) of 'stirring up hatred against people on religious grounds'. It does this by adding new parts to an older law: the Public Order Act 1986.

Rebecca Bensted

What is it about?

The government themselves have said that the new law is meant to be for the benefit of Muslims living in Britain who need protection from attacks on them which have been more common since September 11th.

What's happened so far?

The Government have already tried on several occasions to pass this law, but have always been forced to withdraw it because of the strength of opposition, from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs and outside pressure from a broad coalition of concerned groups. Now the Government are trying to push through the law because it was one of their manifesto promises.

What does the Religious Hatred Bill mean for Christians?

A law against stirring up religious hatred sounds like an excellent idea - the Gospel is a Gospel of love and all Christians would support measures to punish and deter those who deliberately create hatred of others on religious grounds. However, the way the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill has been written means it is very likely it will have dangerous consequences which the Government did not intend it to have. For example:

• A very similar law passed recently in Australia has led to the prosecution of a mainstream Christian pastor who taught a seminar on Islam. The judge decided that the seminar incited 'intense dislike' of Muslims and this was enough to count as 'hatred'.
• Already in England, under existing law, a street preacher's conviction for a public order offence was upheld by the High Court because he held a placard which said 'Stop Homosexuality' 'Stop Immorality' 'Turn to Jesus' and the court said those words were 'abusive and insulting' to a certain section of the community.
• Also, in certain areas of England with large Islamic populations, Churches have already been asked to take down posters saying things like 'Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life' because they could be considered insulting to people of other religions. If the Religious Hatred Bill becomes law it would be even more likely that the freedom for Christians to speak about such things would be removed.
• Because Christianity teaches tolerance and grace, it is likely that it would be people of other religions, extremists or activist groups, who would try and prosecute Christian leaders, rather than Christians prosecuting others. There are already examples of this sort of behaviour - the Mysticism and Occult Federation monitored Premier (Christian) Radio in order to find grounds for complaint. They then sent those complaints to the Radio Authority. That Authority upheld some of the complaints that it was offensive for Premier radio to warn of the dangers of the occult on air.
• In a recent case (August 2005) under the similar Australian law, a witch sought to prosecute the Salvation Army for using the Alpha course to preach the good news in the prison where the witch was serving time. The judge said the claim was 'preposterous' but criticised the law which allowed the Salvation Army's time to be wasted as well as the embarrassment and bad publicity of a police investigation and trial, all of which happened even though they were eventually found not guilty. This sort of legal battle and publicity would almost inevitably happen in this country if the new law is brought in.

Conclusion about the Religious Hatred Bill

1) The idea of preventing stirring up of religious hatred is one that all Christians should support. But:

2) The current laws against religiously aggravated harassment, property damage and violence are enough to protect Muslims and other religious minorities.