In Scotland, the Bible May be Hate Speech! By Richard Miller
It was only a matter of time before the poetically politically correct anti-racism regime came for the Bible, and the over-the-top Scottish race hate laws may do it:
“A sloppily worded hate crime bill in Scotland could undermine free speech and unfairly stigmatize people of faith, the Christian Institute has warned.
The Christian Institute’s Deputy Director Ciarán Kelly said on Friday that the proposed legislation “risks creating a chilling effect on free speech” because of the ambiguity of its language and lack of protections for basic freedoms.
“The new offences cover ‘abusive’ behaviour intended to ‘stir up hatred’ but no explanation is given as to what these terms actually mean,” Mr Kelly said.
“Would it be ‘abusive’ and ‘hateful’ to quote the Bible’s teaching on marriage, gender or sexual ethics?” he added. “Some groups would say yes. There is a real risk of malicious reports from activists who wish to stop Christians expressing their beliefs.”
“Provisions on ‘inflammatory material’ could be used against Christian books, sermons by church ministers – even the Bible itself,” Kelly noted. “The potential reach of the offences is enormous, affecting religious practice in public and in private.”
These fears are not without basis and atheist groups have already threatened to use the new legislation to target Christians.
Atheists see some merit in the Hate Crime Bill, said the convener of Atheists Scotland, Ian Stewart, “as it will enable the prosecution of all Scotland’s religions and their Holy Books for spreading hatred.”
“It is utterly unacceptable that in progressive, social democratic Scotland that squalid, Bronze Age village disputes, as described in the Holy Books, about control of women, goats or water should give Scotland’s ‘Holy Willies‘ authority to spout out vitriol against atheists, agnostics, apostates, sceptics, non-believers, women, trans people and homosexuals,” Stewart declared in the Dundee newspaper The Courier.
Christians should have mobilised long ago to fight al of this Left-wing tyranny, beginning at least in the 1960s, but it has been a lukewarm effort, dulled by consumer comfort, as all of this darkness spread over the West, like something out of The Lord of the Rings.
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