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Straw moves to ban incitement against gays

Inciting homophobic hatred will become illegal, the justice secretary, Jack Straw, announced last night, following a campaign by gay rights groups. The introduction of an offence of rallying hatred against gays and lesbians follows similar measures to tackle religious hate crime, which were passed earlier this year after lengthy rows over freedom of speech.

"It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last 10 years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality. It is time for the law to recognise this," said Mr Straw, introducing the second reading of the criminal justice and immigration bill.

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The offence is technically defined as inciting hatred on the grounds of sexuality, protecting bisexuals and heterosexuals too. Mr Straw said he would consider whether protection should be extended to transgendered and disabled people.

The proposal is likely to run into opposition in the Lords. Evangelical Christian groups have argued that Christians who criticised gay sex could be jailed for up to seven years and warned it would be used to censor the expression of religious beliefs. A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said: "The new law would not prohibit criticism of gay, lesbian and bisexual people, but it would protect them from incitement to hatred against them because of their sexual orientation."

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights campaign Stonewall, said: "We refuse to accept that there's no connection between rap lyrics calling on people to kill homosexuals, or BNP literature describing gay people as paedophiles, and the epidemic of anti-gay violence taking place on Britain's streets."

U.K. Justice Minister Jack Straw has outlined plans for a new law criminalizing incitement of hatred against lesbian, gay or bisexual people. Those convicted of breaking the law could face a maximum sentence of seven years.

The new legislation is likely be modeled after the United Kingdom's controversial religious hatred law, which came into effect last week.

Straw explained that the gay harassment law will be included as an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill now being debated in Parliament.

Details of the measure are yet to be finalized.

The new law would not ban criticism of gay men and lesbians, but it would protect them from incitement to hatred against them, according to the Ministry of Justice.

"It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last 10 years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality, Straw told an audience of MPs on Sunday evening.

"It is time for the law to recognize this."

Straw said the law may be extended further to cover hatred against disabled and transgendered people.

The government plans prompted dissent from Christian and Muslim organizations arguing that the law infringes on free speech.

"In a democratic society, people must be free to express their beliefs without fear of censure," Colin Hart, director of the evangelical Christian Institute, said in a statement. "A homophobic hatred law would be used by those with an axe to grind against Christians to silence them.

"There have already been high-profile cases of the police interfering with free speech and religious liberty regarding sexual ethics. People shouldn't face prison for expressing their sincerely held religious beliefs," Hart said.

Mike Judge of The Christian Institute argued for protections to ensure people could freely express their religious beliefs.

"We are still very concerned that this law may lead to Christians being censured by the state for their views on sexual ethic," Judge told The Telegraph newspaper in London.

On Tuesday, Muslim groups vented further outrage, with Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission posing the question to The Daily Express, "If someone is reading the Bible and calls homosexuality an abomination, is that going to be incitement?"

"I was against the incitement to religious hatred legislation," Shadjareh added. "Either you water it down until it becomes pointless or you have a situation where you deprive people the right to have access to freedom of speech."

Gay rights campaigner and Stonewall chief Ben Summerskill responded, "We are crystal clear that this is not about constraining anyone from expressing their religious views in a temperate way.

"It is about preventing people from inciting hatred, whether through the lyrics of rap musicians or Muslim organizations which hand out leaflets saying that all homosexuals are pedophiles."

Under the proposed legislation, law enforcement authorities would determine if a person's comments or actions were serious enough to warrant prosecution.

Prosecution would be brought only with the agreement of the Attorney-General.

The legislation further stipulates that prosecution could be made against people who use threatening words or written material, or who record visual images or sounds that incite hatred over sexual orientation.

The wording of this law is similar to that of the one that has been pushed for here in the U.S. The manner of the wording could be used to prevent the preaching of the Bible if just one person uses that wording to substantiate a violent act against homosexuals just once. I am sure that it would not be used against the koran though. After all we can't upset islam.

Yes we can, and will upset islam with the Bible. :D :D

Did you notice in the one article that Muslims were actually supporting the Bible on this subject?

Yup that was a little bit of a surprise. What really caught my eyes were Christian and muslim organizations, being lumped together in the same sentence.

I didn't consider it a surprise as islam wants all homosexuals dead anyway. They figured that if the Bible would be used against Christians then the koran would be used against them.