Might actually turn out to be a good thing in the long rung. Someone could take the Quran, with its numerous kuffar-hating verses, to court under this law. Not to mention the hadiths, which are often even worse.

I've said all along the way to defeat the politically correct allies of Islam is to turn their own rhetoric against them. Use the PC rhetoric to point out Islam's religiously mandated apartheid system against non-Muslims, Jews, women and gays. Keep hammering away at it.

The PCs have absolutely NO answer to this tactic. They usually just sputter and stutter.

Posted by: Suzan at July 7, 2004 1:16 PM

David Blunkett should learn from the experience of the State of Victoria in Australia.

The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act has been a disaster. Here is a copy of it:

http://www.unicz.it/lavoro/AUS_RARTA2001265.pdf

Here is the government's official explanation of how it works:

http://www.eoc.vic.gov.au/rescentre/understandingtheracialandreligioustoleranceact.html

Here is evidence of how the law has been a disaster:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=2&search=%22catch+the+fire%22

The citizens of Britain must protest this intrusion on their freedom of speech. Next they will be saying that it is religious vilification for agnostics to suggest that they are not sure there is a god or for atheists to state that they do not believe in any supernatural powers. To what kind of world are stupid laws like this leading us? Marxists will just simply declare that Marxism is a religion and insist that no one can criticize it. Next, they will outlaw thinking entirely as it may lead people to have politically incorrect thoughts. Instead of the Mutawans like the Saudis have, we will have the "thought police" monitoring our every synaptic connection, every letter we write, every public utterance that we dare make. What a wonderful world!

I, for one, cannot live in such a world! I will fight this kind of BS to my dying breath.

Posted by: Mentat at July 7, 2004 1:21 PM

It's absurd, but it will never get through the House of Lords. They tried it two years ago and it was a damp squip.

Posted by: Interestd at July 7, 2004 1:23 PM

Poor brits,
lost in their fogs,
and can't call out the dogs
to help find their way home
as this would
offend their asian guests.
They are left in a terrible dilema,
like the sad jemimima in pakistan
so they stumble and fall
until they are all bound
and tied like slaves by their laws,
beaten to the ground
by those they try to rule.
What fools!

Posted by: the poetess at July 7, 2004 4:59 PM

"the poetess" - a misnomer, if ever there was one - is clearly an anti-British racist who hasn't read the articles in Dhimmi watch properly.

Here in muticultural Birmingham (England,) I know many asians with dogs, including my immediate neighbours. It is muslims - Arab, white, black, asian or sky blue pink with purple polka dots - who are supposed to have a problem with dogs.

The issue with seeing eye-dogs arose in New Brunswick, which is in the USA and not the UK. This issue will never arise in the UK as our Home Secretary, Mr. David Blunkett is blind - literally, as in 'cannot see with his eyes', and uses a seeing eye dog all the time.

Although I disagree deeply with Mr Blunkett's proposed law, I would never lower myself to mocking his blindness and his dog. I quote,"Poor brits,
lost in their fogs,
and can't call out the dogs
to help find their way home
as this would
offend their asian guests. "

Dressing up ignorance and prejudice in bad blank verse does not make it any less offensive or any more acceptable.

Finally, we are not fools and we do realise what this law would mean. I refer anyone interested to go to Melanie Phillips's blog and, in her 'diary' page, look for the article entitled 'Orwell's Britain revisited'. By the way, there is also an article on the 'non-exisitent' WMDs. In fact, there are several scattered over the past few weeks of her diary. Her blog is to be found at melaniephillips.com. Melanie is a nationally recognised journalist and commentator.

Posted by: Ian at July 7, 2004 6:12 PM

If Nazis say terrible things about Jews, and act on those terrible things, and then Jews, in turn, say things about the Nazis, are these equivalent acts? Of course not.

What constitutes "inciting religious hatred"? If, in the mosques, the Christians and Jews are described as kuffars and quotes are taken from Qur'an and hadith; if, furthermore, it is suggested that Muslims must have solidarity only with other Muslims; that everyone is born is born a Muslim but through distorted understanding of Islam people become Christians and Jews; if passages in the Qur'an that incuclate hatred of non-Muslims are read or alluded to -- if all of this goes on, and then someone comes along, and points this out, and further points to the precise aggressive, hate-filled, and murderous texts in Qur'an and hadith, and furthermore points out certain details in the biography of Muhammad -- are these equivalent acts? In the first case, hate and aggression and even murder of non-Muslims, is being preached. Will Her Majesty's Government confiscate all such material -- that is to say, all Qur'ans, all copies of the hadith?

And will it suppress, on pain of prosecution, those who simply express some home truths about the tenets of Islam, and about the history of Muslim treatment of non-Muslims? If someone points out that the Christians of Toledo were all massacred, and so were the Jews of Grenada, under that so-called wonderful "convivencia" of Muslim-ruled Al-Andaluz, will that be allowed? If someone points out that the murder of Christians in Pakistan, in the Sudan, in the Philippines, and elsewhere, or the murder of Buddhists in Thailand, or the murder of Hindus in Pakistan, Kashmir, Bangladesh, and even India itself, or the murder, by Muslims, of Jews in and out of Israel for being Jewish, have a good deal to do not with poverty, nor "humiliation" (in what way were the northern Arabs "humiliated" by the southern Sudanese blacks? Or the Muslims in southern Thailand "humiliated" by the Buddhist monks? How did the Bamiyan Buddhas, in fact, "humiliate" the Taliban?), but everything to do with the tenets of Islam.

If Great Britain wishes to suppress the ability of its own citizens to observe, and to express, what is staring them in the face, it will lose legitimacy, create even more inarticulate but sullen hostility -- the kind of thing that comes out, not in reasonable measures of self-defense, but in street fascism and bully boys, it can do no better than pass this kind of idiotic legislation -- unless, of course, it is crafted carefully to suppress real inculcation of hatred, and not those who point out from what textual sources such inculcation arises.

Posted by: Hugh at July 7, 2004 6:13 PM

Ain't never going to happen. If, by some freak of nature, it does then Kuffars had better get together and point to the religious hatred in the Koran and Hadith.

In fact I believe that this is the real agenda here, ie to hoist the Islamists with their own petard. There is an understated but definite backlash in the UK against PC and multiculturalism. Check this out in the Sun, the (albeit trashy) voice of the people:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004311394,00.html

Posted by: Interestd at July 7, 2004 6:21 PM

Ian:

Get your facts straight before you post. The University of New Brunswick is not in the U.S. but in Canada.

Poetess: You still rock!

Posted by: CGW at July 7, 2004 6:33 PM

Ian said, "The issue with seeing eye-dogs arose in New Brunswick, which is in the USA and not the UK."

Hey! Who the hell sold New Brunswick to the States while we weren't looking?!?!?!?!

Those gall darn Yankees are always pulling one over on us poor Canucks.

Ian.... check your atlas.... NB is as Canadian as maple syrup.

"Your grandchildren will be tapping maple trees and eating taffy."

Posted by: canuck at July 7, 2004 7:16 PM

I would think that one way to combat this problem is to use the http://www.prophetofdoom.net approach. Simply quote the hell out of the Koran and other applicable islamic books and use the quotes of their most esteemed clerics. There is more than enough rope there to hang them all. We wouldn’t even have to quote them out of context.

“Your grandchildren will use the koran against islam.”

Posted by: canuck at July 7, 2004 7:22 PM

Once again, we (the West) are framing mischief by law. It's people who hate being reminded that the West was once known as Christendom and that sexual perversions have ugly consequences who press for the hate speech laws--and forty years ago the same people who today press for hate speech laws were disrupting classes and trashing university offices for the right to scream the f-word and sh-word all over the place.

Frankly, I don't know about the Brits and Canucks here, but this is one American who every so often pines for the good old days when people could be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail.

Posted by: Kepha1 at July 7, 2004 10:21 PM

Unfortunately, I was unable to make the comments work last night or I would have apologised sooner for a geographical error. I feel almost American.

I note that no-one has actually addressed the argument, which is not based on the location of New Brunswick.

Instead of making condescending remarks about your allies, might I suggest that you put some of your much vaunted Christianity to good use and pray for the church in England. It has been dominated by liberal theology for over a century now. The end result is an almost pagan society.

Such is the level of ignorance about Christianity that Blunkett was able to equate evangelical Christianity with the far right.! ( See the article at www.melaniephillips.com thatI recommneded in my previous posting). He has obviously forgotten that the Labour Party was born out of the social reformation powered by the Evangelical revival and Methodism.

This kind of ignorance I find really scary.

"Interestd"may be right in thinking that it is unlikely to happen, but I cite Australia, Canada and the recent applications of your own 'separation of Church and State' shibboleth. A hidden agenda? Blunkett isn't that clever, and this is not the first time he's tried it.

Bur we are not fools and he still has to get through both Houses.

Posted by: Ian at July 8, 2004 6:12 AM

Here are a couple of extracts on this subject from Metro which is a free newspaper available on public services nationwide in the UK it's a little liberal sometimes but not unbearably so:

EXTRACT 1:
"The home secretary said he was reviving the proposals because there was a need to stop people being abused or targeted just because they held a particular religious faith.
He said a major aim would be to crack down on extremists who preach hatred against other religions.(Sounds like the muslim clerics to me -Rik)
But he promised the public would still have the right to express their freely-held views on other peoples faiths (Oh thats ok then-Rik)

EXTRACT 2:
"There is already an offence of inciting racial hatred but this does not offer protection if someone is targeted because of a religion.The government is in particular worried about discrimination against muslims."

The last line in this paragraph in particular is the point at which I almost flung the paper away from me. It is a total contradiction, in one breath saying extremists will be targeted by this law then in the next saying that these extremists are the ones who will be protected by it.Ludicrous! The most comical thing about this is that on the same page in this very news paper is a report about Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi and his pearls of wisdom, maybe the government should focus more on getting him out of the UK and seeing who his affiliates are over here.
The muslims in the UK are already afforded far too much protection as it is , this law is going to give them such an air of superiority , in that the slightest un-muslim remark will be claimed to be an incitement of religious hatred.
If David Blunkett had've evened out this proposed law by saying something along the lines of "all religious hatred will be targeted in equal measures" then fair enough ,but as it stands now it leaves far too many grey areas. For example if someone like the aforementioned Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi is giving a public speech against "infadels" and the west in general, would this be classed as racial hatred, it can't really be classed as religious hatred if no specific religion has been mentioned."Infadels" could be any one from Jews and cristians to Wall Street stock Brokers. Therefore the case would be thrown out of court on a technicality. We will once again become the laughing stock in our own country by people who are invading it.
By the same token we ( the REAL british public) would be forced to walk on even more eggshells than we already do. Can any Brits who visit this site remember Robert Kilroy Silk, for the benefit of our international audience he was a kind of British Jerry Springer. He got fired for saying something along the lines of: all arabs are terrorists and suicide bombers in his newspaper column. Risky business in that line of work but for gods sake aren't we entitled to have an opinion , especially when what was said is not a million miles away from the truth . This happened last year, so this is before this new, ridiculous law was even mentioned ,so imagine all the scenarios that could crop up Post-anti-religion law. Once again there are too many grey areas and too much power is being given to the muslims, I don't know whether the government are fishing for muslim votes or what but this really does need stopping or at least smooothing down to make it fair and equal, and it's also about time there was a reversed racism law, the anglo-saxon british public deserve protection from racial hatred and discrimination just as all other races do.

Posted by: Rikki at July 8, 2004 6:13 AM

"Your grandchildren will use the koran against islam."
Canuck, U da man!!!

Interested,
You're right about the Sun it's the only newspaper in this country that seems to fight PC and the islamic invasion of the UK. We need to be hammering our views across to them, see you at the next protest!!!

Posted by: Rikki at July 8, 2004 6:28 AM

The same is not only coming to the USA, but it has precedence with the unconcept of "hate crimes." This British (and Canadian) abomination will take away our Bill of Rights, starting with the first and marching to the end. Liberals, the Jihadists' fellow travellers, love internationalization of everything. They will work ceaselessly and incrimentally to achieve extinguishing the Constitution by all means possible. This issue deserves highest vigilance and proactive, repetitive dissuasion of legislators.

Posted by: George Mason at July 8, 2004 2:47 PM

George Mason:

Frankly, my guess is that the furor Islamicus being unleashed is going to arouse a strong backlash against the multiculties, the immoderate Left, and other such groups that have been merrily tearing down our civilization for so long.

Probably one reason these cancerous growths occurred was that the West has been largely at ease since 1945. It's tended to forget that there really is such a thing as evil.

Posted by: Kepha1 at July 8, 2004 11:07 PM

This is all about Muslims not wanting people to know the real truth about their belief system. It's all about shutting down free speech when it comes to talking about Islam. We can blast away at Christianity all we want, and that's been going on for years, but our openness is very threatening to the facade and lies of Islam in the West. This "Religion of Peace" BS they've created and fostered, demanding we swallow that lie, so they can continue to plot and instigate hatred against infidels. They are trying this in Australia too. Always claiming "racism" and "villification" if people say anything remotely negative (but true) about Islam. Thanks to the Internet, too much truth is out there and they're feeling threatened, so they are hitting back, aided by the Left, by trying to shut down free speech when it comes to religion. Oh, but even if they did manage to outlaw negative comments about Islam, you could still blast away at Christianity all you wanted.

Posted by: feralee at July 9, 2004 12:34 AM