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Memorandum submitted by the Evangelical Alliance (CJ&I 08)
We regret the short notice given to enable us to submit evidence to the scrutiny committee concerning proposals to insert a section into the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill outlawing incitement to hatred on grounds of sexuality. We are also surprised that out of the oral witnesses called by the Committee there are no representatives of the religion and belief sector which is extraordinary given that they are likely to be one of the sectors most affected by the proposed new legislation. I am accordingly forwarding the following brief comments as a summary of evidence for the committee to take into account. The Evangelical Alliance was founded in 1846 and is the oldest alliance of evangelical Christians in the world. The Alliance is the largest body serving evangelical Christians in the UK, and has a membership including denominations, churches, organisations and individuals. In its formative years the Alliance particularly stood for the victims of religious persecution and enabled evangelicals from different denominations to work together. As part of a movement 'uniting to change society' the Alliance promotes unity and truth, acts as an evangelical voice to the state, society and the wider church, and works collaboratively with Alliance members and other evangelicals, to present Christ credibly as good news for spiritual and social transformation. The Alliance speaks on behalf of its members and represents evangelical concerns to Government, the National Assemblies, the media and key decision-makers. In resourcing its members and encouraging Christians to fully engage in their communities as responsible citizens, the Alliance strives to make evangelical truths publicly accessible The Alliance worked closely with Government and many others during the recent Racial and Religious Hatred Bill and it is crucial that the lessons learned during the passage of that Bill are not lost as the Government seeks to introduce parallel measures to outlaw incitement of hatred on grounds of sexuality - as opposed to religion and belief. The Alliance has frequently reiterated its opposition to incitement of homophobic or other forms of hatred and has been supportive for many years of fundamental human rights for homosexual and transsexual people and others. But as the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill showed, it is very easy to move from a position in which the pursuit of tolerance and anti-discrimination becomes itself unacceptably intolerant and discriminatory. In particular, the Alliance agreed strongly with those who wished to retain the fundamental civil liberty of freedom of speech during the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, and supported widespread demands for the continuing right to give offence to, critique, satirize, caricature and lampoon religion and belief. It is important, therefore, for a level playing field to exist, that in any further legislation the same approach is adopted with regard to sexuality as it was with religion and belief. We wish to emphasise at the outset that the true comparator for legislation outlawing incitement to hatred on grounds of sexuality is definitively not race - because sexual preference relates to behavioural choice - not to any permanent or unchangeable inherited human characteristic. Like religion and belief, the question is extremely controversial, and space must be allowed for expression of very different views on the subject. Accordingly, we have stated publicly that we hope the Government will consult carefully with interested parties before it decides to go ahead with banning incitement on grounds of sexuality in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. The Evangelical Alliance clearly supports legislation that seeks effectively to prevent the stirring up of hatred. But our view remains that the existing law was adequate to deal with offences relating both to religion and sexuality. We would have preferred there to be no Racial and Religious Hatred Bill at all, but it is understandable that now the Bill is on the statute book LGBT lobbyists would seek parity between the two human rights strands in this regard. The obvious difficulty in attempting to legislate in this area is that there is a real risk of free speech being severely curtailed and people consequently feeling afraid to engage in legitimate debate, unless the law is clearly defined. In our view, it is better not to legislate further in the difficult and largely subjective area of censorship of so-called incitement through use of words. We would rather see effective legislation being considered to outlaw incitement to violence against groups of people - as opposed to individuals. This would avoid the danger of descent into the dangerous area of thought crime, inevitable but unnecessary and unhelpful confrontation of different views in the courts, the silencing or chilling effect of attempts to legislate for what can or cannot be said, and the resultant circumscribing of fundamental civil liberties. Parliament clearly expressed its concerns in this regard as the outcome of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill showed. However, if the Government still feels it is necessary to bring in further legislation, it is vital that the Racial and Religious Hatred Act is used as the model and benchmark, since this recently-enacted law against incitement of hatred on grounds of religion and belief probably represents the best current legal precedent or comparator that we have. It was widely considered that the religious hatred provisions struck the right balance between outlawing incitement of hatred and retaining freedom of speech by ensuring that offences must be intentional and covering only language that is threatening. We look forward to discussing the as yet unformulated proposals with Government and hopefully the scrutiny committee, as occurred in the case of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, and we shall be looking to see appropriate definitions built into any proposed legislation to make it absolutely clear what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable speech. By way of more detailed concerns we would affirm our belief that it must remain the Government's priority and responsibility to ensure that the new offence contains at least some equivalent to s29J of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. S29J states: 29 J Protection of freedom of expression An initial attempt at suggesting an equivalent wording for the new law aimed at tackling incitement to hatred on grounds of sexuality has been provided by one of our legal colleagues, Neil Addison. It reads as follows: Protection of freedom of expression Distinguishing between "sexual activity" and "sexual orientation" is similar to what s29J does in distinguishing between "religion" and membership of a "religious group". It also fits in with classic Christian and other religious teaching which has always distinguished between sexual orientation and behaviour. It is also crucial to ensure that intentionality and language having to be threatening in nature are clearly reflected in any new legislation. Because it will effectively silence any open controversial speech, we are insistent that there must be no modelling of new legislation for sexuality on race hate legislation where the governing legal terminology refers to language and behaviour that is 'abusive, insulting or threatening'. And in race hate legislation instead of intentionality all that has to be demonstrated to bring about criminal investigation is a 'likelihood' of hatred being stirred up. Such thresholds are far too low and subjective to permit any workable legislation in this area and must be decisively rejected. These factors were decisive in parliamentary debate during the Racial & Religious Hatred Bill. We are also opposed to any renewed attempt to make the Attorney General the arbiter of potential prosecutions. This issue was debated at length during the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill and the proposed role of the Attorney General rightly came under intense criticism. The lack of adequate guidelines and safeguards was evident, and many pointed to the inevitable silencing and 'chilling' effect such uncertain legislation would have on freedom of speech in the public sphere. The prospect of regular court confrontation is not a spectacle that the UK public wish to see and the Government, through the Equality and Human Rights Commission is supposedly anxious not to precipitate an era of clashes between human rights strands. This has to be right and we urge the scrutiny committee to do everything possible to ensure that fundamental civil liberties relating to freedom of speech and freedom of conscience remain unrestricted.
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