Call for Action and latest information on Religious Hatred Bill and Equality Bill

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/Nov05/29nov05.html

[Anglican Mainstream] November 29, 2005--After the significant defeat of the current wording of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill and the proposal of free speech amendments in the House of Lords on the 25th October, the government responded on the 8th November at the Report stage of the Bill by displaying a very limited acceptance of the need for changes to be made. It appears that the government may accept some form of defence to protect religious proselytization and critique, but they want to keep the low threshold to the offence of words which are abusive (and possibly words which are insulting) rather than requiring the words to be 'threatening', as the amendments had suggested. They are also reluctant to agree that there should be a need that an accused intended to stir up hatred in order to be prosecuted.