From "The Slippery Slope of ‘Hate-Crimes’ Laws" by Stephen Adams, associate Editor at Citizenlink.org
Plus, in other countries that have adopted hate-crimes laws, “hate-speech” bans generally go with the package.
For example:
- Ireland prohibits words or behaviors that are “threatening, abusive or insulting and are intended or … are likely to stir up hatred” on the basis of one’s sexual orientation.
- Iceland forbids “ridiculing, slandering, insulting, threatening” protected classes, including homosexuals.
- Sweden’s hate-speech law bans even expressing “disrespect.”
- In Italy, an atheist is taking a priest to the European Court of Human Rights on a complaint of “religious racism” for teaching that Jesus existed.
Probably the next big battleground after “homophobic” hate speech is “Islamophobic” hate speech.
Canadian Pastor Mark Harding, for example, publicly objected when his local high school began handing out Qurans and making special accommodations for Muslim students to pray at school, while others were denied such privileges. Because the literature he distributed attributed violence to Islam, Harding was prosecuted under a Canadian hate-crimes law for “willfully promoting hatred” against a religious group.
His sentence was two years’ probation and 340 hours of community service at Ontario’s Islamic Society of North America under supervision of a Muslim imam.
Read the whole article.
