Sir, The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which returns from the Lords tomorrow, is still cause for serious concern for a number of reasons.

It fails to give a satisfactory definition of religion and it is still not clear whether non-theistic life stances such as Scientology or Wicca are included.

Section 29A of the Schedule defines religious hatred “by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief”. How “religious hatred” can be defined by “a lack of religious belief” is confusing, to say the least. Perhaps “hatred of religion” might be preferable.

“Hatred” is not adequately defined. The dictionary definition is “active dislike” or “rejection”. Is hatred of this kind necessarily wrong? Hatred of child abusers, terrorists, murderers and racists is surely natural. The Bill proposes to define hatred in terms of threat, Section 29B(3) stating that a constable may arrest without warrant anyone “he reasonably thinks” is threatening another. The difficulty here is that what may appear as an open statement of fact to one person may be threatening to another.

The Bill fails to take cognisance that the sacred texts of many of the world’s major faiths, and indeed some new religious movements, contain expressions, in some cases strong expressions, of hatred.

By discouraging people from freely expressing their opinions the Bill gives a cover to religious groups who utilise high-pressure persuasion techniques, extract people’s money and engage in a wide range of dysfunctional practices.

The provisions of this Bill are such that people will be deterred from speaking out against abusive practices perpetrated by extremist and fundamentalist religious groups. In particular, the voices of women and children will in many cases be silenced because they will be reluctant to speak out for fear of being accused of religious hatred.

While Section 29J indicates that discussion is not prohibited, the Bill does not state that open debate about religion will be actively encouraged in our schools and universities as well as in scholarly journals.

Perhaps worst of all, this Bill curtails free speech, which has always been an integral aspect of the democratic ideal.

THE REV DR NIGEL SCOTLAND
Cheltenham, Glos

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