Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Inciting hatred on the grounds of sexuality

The Government have announced that they are to introduce legislation to protect people on the grounds of incitement to hatred because of their sexual orientation

To quote Stonewall:

Ben Summerskill, Stonewall Chief Executive, said: ‘We’re delighted. We’ve worked tirelessly over the last six months seeking to persuade Ministers to match existing race incitement laws with identical protections for sexual orientation. A new offence will help deter extremists who stir up hatred against lesbian and gay people.These protections aren’t about preventing people expressing their religious views in a temperate way. However, we refuse to accept any longer that there’s no connection between extreme rap lyrics calling for gay people to be attacked, or fundamentalist claims that all gay people are paedophiles, with the epidemic of anti-gay violence disfiguring Britain’s streets. We anticipate, as always, a tough battle with our traditional opponents in the House of Lords but remain determined to secure complete equality in the criminal law.’

Naturally, the extreme evangelicals are kicking up the usual fuss when anything to do with gay equality is mentioned.

Let's hope they lose this as they have lost their other campaigns.

2 comments:

Chris said...

I am pretty much persuaded that if I was an MP, I would have voted in favour of all legislation giving rights to gay people, including voting in favour of the Civil Partnership bill. Despite hold trad views on marriage on sexuality and marriage I am just not convincd that such legislation is to feared, and is in fact just.

Merseymike said...

I think its people like yourself expressing your view on this who could make some impact, Chris.

Its a pity that the Church just can't divide with some civility and grace, though, as clearly the two 'wings' are unable to co-exist.