On April Fools' Day, the Scottish Parliament’s new hate crime bill came into effect after almost a year of delays. The law claims it is designed to halt hate speech and consolidate similar laws already on the books.
It adds new protected categories to the criminal charge of "threatening or abusive behavior which is intended to stir up hatred." These include age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, and variations in sex characteristics. The United Kingdom has had hate law crimes on the books since 1986. The man who pushed through the law, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf, claims it balances free speech with protection for minorities.
Leftists were angry it didn’t go far enough. They are lobbying for the inclusion of hatred for women or misogyny. Some are even threatening JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame, claiming she needs to be reported to the police for her views on the reality that there are only two sexes. Rowling said, “Dress however you please…Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?”
Over 8,000 complaints have been filed with the police since April 1. A conservative member of parliament, Murdo Frazier, was reported to the police. His alleged crime was posting online, "Choosing to identify as ‘non-binary' is as valid as choosing to identify as a cat." Book him, indeed.
The sheer waste of police and legal enforcement is staggering. And it will grow exponentially as lawfare moves into full gear, fueled by non-governmental organizations and special interest groups newly empowered as roving criminal investigators. The self-loathing fear behind this law lays bare a Scottish political culture that believes abusive excesses of free speech cannot be counteracted by more rational and charitable free speech.
Sadly, hate speech crimes are one more form of political control in the ever-expanding global dictatorship of relativism. They are designed to destroy an open society based on ethical considerations openly debated and discussed. The goal is to replace them with the hobnailed boots of raw judicial power.
Speaking uncharitably about someone is a sin that should be brought to confession, not prosecuted as a crime. Right now, various minority groups around the globe want to use hate speech laws to silence and cow the majority into silent submission. But just as minorities have rights, so do majorities.
Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote in his book Without Roots, "In recent years I find myself noting how the more relativism becomes the generally accepted way of thinking, the more it tends towards intolerance, thereby becoming a new dogmatism. Political correctness…seeks to establish the domain of a single way of thinking and speaking. Its relativism creates the illusion that it has reached greater heights than the loftiest philosophical achievements of the past. It prescribes itself as the only way to think and speak – if, that is, one wishes to stay in fashion. Being faithful to traditional values and to the knowledge that upholds them is labeled intolerance, and relativism becomes a required norm. I think it is vital that we oppose this imposition of a new pseudo–enlightenment, which threatens freedom of thought as well as freedom of religion. In Sweden, a preacher who presented the biblical teaching on the question of homosexuality received a prison sentence. This is just one sign of the gains that have been made by relativism as a kind of new 'denomination' that places restrictions on religious convictions and seeks to subordinate all religions to the super-dogma of relativism.”
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In the United States, there are those on the Left and the Right who want to punish speech. The Left would imitate the example of Scotland, Ireland, Germany, and other countries across Europe. But the Right is not without hypocrisy here. There are many who, despite their dislike for political correctness, are now seeking to punish by law or lawfare those who speak out against Zionism and charge that Israel is guilty of war crimes.
The silencers on both sides are acting absurdly. Their attack on the free and open expression of ideas, even if they think those ideas are ridiculous and hateful, undermines liberty.
Ironically, many on the Left and Right who think pornography is protected as free speech (it is not speech, nor was it envisioned as such by the American Founding Fathers) are among the most adamant in trying to silence the political, ethical, and religious speech of their opponents. That is something the Founding Fathers did reject.
Speech and bad thoughts should not be criminalized. If they are, the next alternative will logically be violence. It is better to be patient and allow people to let off steam. Leave the police and the courts to deal with actual violent crimes of robbery, assault, murder, and mayhem.
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