Hate is not a crime – it is a sin – a sin of thought, which may manifest itself in speech and behaviour.

Christian societies do not criminalise hate but teach and encourage self-policing by naming and shaming sin. Secularism has no such ability so it calls in the help of criminal sanctions to force compliance with its thoughtcrime(s) and hate speech.

Hate crime seems to be a crime motivated by or aggravated by hate.

The problem with hate crime is that it is selective, choosing which groups to which it applies. Rather, hate is wrong and history teaches us that one person’s orthodoxy is another person’s heresy.

Political correctness is the new morality – secular morality – defined by secular politicians making laws in parliament to be policed and enforced by the full resources of the state.

Hate crime applies criminal sanctions to uphold secular morality.

Think about these public statements after each atrocity: we must ‘root out’ certain people; there is ‘no place in our society’ for certain views; certain people should not have access to the internet and their social media accounts are terminated without appeal. These statements and more are routinely peddled by mainstream politicians internationally, most recently by the Prime Minister of New Zealand after the Christchurch massacre. If these hate statements are taken at their face value, what do they mean? Does it mean the restoration of capital punishment? Presumably not. So what about life imprisonment? Or deportation? Or boycotting? No platforming is too mild, but in the same genre. Rather, these are extreme, unmeasured statements from leaders, and people following their lead, reacting to the hate speech and the hate crimes of others with hate speech of their own. Just as ‘some animals are more equal than others’, so ‘some hate speech is more politically correct than others’.

The Scottish Christian Party predicted these strident charges and counter-charges many years ago when it warned: “Subjective offence has worked its way through Equalities legislation and it will continue to stoke up charges and countercharges of being offended by each other’s speech and way of life. This will prove to be unworkable, and will itself contribute to louder and louder protests by disparate groups who are offended.  Those who can shout loudest and make most use of the judicial system will prevail” (see SCP Manifesto 2007 Another Approach pp. 14-15 , SCP Manifesto 2011 Another Opportunity, p. 20, and repeated in each manifesto since then).

It is time for Christian leaders to stand up with proper, truthful, measured statements and assessments, tackling hatred with love instead of ‘orthodox, politically correct hatred’. Where are these Christian leaders?

Church and state have failed the nations.

The Lord commented in similar circumstances: ‘I sought for a man among them, that should repair the hedge and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.’

Ezekiel 22:3

Update:

19 Feb 2009: one might almost think that this Irish MEP had read and borrowed from our Manifesto.

25 Aug 2018: naming the sin.

23 Mar 2019: Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychology professor challenging political correctness and the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, has been no platformed by Cambridge University activists. He had been granted a visiting fellowship at Cambridge for two months, but the university withdrew the offer, saying there was “no place” for people with his views.

24 Mar 2019: a leading Scottish independence activist in the Radical Independence campaign extends ‘no platforming’ to ‘no photographs’.

25 Mar 2019: no platforming draws attention to the interference with ‘freedom of movement’ as well as freedom of speech. The Inquisitors have arrived in force, that is, the police force. The Thought Police can now predict that you will commit a breach of the peace and restrict your freedom of movement.

10 May 2019: Noah Carl is the latest academic casualty of free speech after being sacked as a Cambridge University Research Fellow. The college claimed that his work “demonstrated poor scholarship, promoted extreme right-wing views and incited racial and religious hatred”. It also cited concerns about his activities linking him to far-right extremists. Trevor Philips questioned the decision on BBC Politics Live today. It has raised more debate than the no platforming of a Canadian professor (see 23 Mar 2019 above). Toby Young in the Spectator accuses it of being a political decision ‘Noah Carl’s only crime is being a conservative’. The Conservative Union discusses “the standard procedures now adopted by the Left”. It would be safer to examine them by standard Christian standards such as truth and freedom. Meanwhile, at the time of posting, the BBC website cannot make up its mind what approach to take, and there are no stories on its website. A search returns “Sorry, there are no results for noah carl bbc.co.uk.”

31 May 2019: Julia Hartley-Brewer has accused the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) of no-platforming her. Its invitation to speak at its upcoming annual conference has been withdrawn as her views have been judged “too much at odds with the core values” of the RCGP. The decision was made without seeking her side of the matter.

10 Feb 2020: Franklin Graham, the son of world-famous Christian evangelist Billy Graham, has been no platformed by venues in the UK for teaching biblical doctrine. It goes further than this. Simply for holding biblical opinions he has been banned from venues. This is where the secular doctrine of ‘hate crime’ has taken our once-free British society. The Thought Police are alive and cracking down.

15 Feb 2020: the Thought Police and non-crime hate incidents.

14 Dec 2020: the SNP Scottish administration has difficulty in regulating without criminalising and legislates at twice the rate of Westminster.

23 Apr 2021: Richard Dawkins is also experiencing the new intolerance being told that transgender identity is “not up for discussion”. The genie of secular morality has been let out of the bottle and people are discovering what it means.