As I read the fascinating debate provoked by Peter Cuthbertson's post about the PCSO who apparently told two Christians that they couldn't promote Christianity in a "Muslim area", it seemed to me that this wasn't just a debate about religion, but also about the concept of hate speech.
There was a man called Harry Hammond once. He was a Christian Evangelical. He used to go to Gay Pride marches and hold up a sign saying “homosexuality is wrong”. “Sodomy is evil”. He got arrested for committing a breach of the peace.
The first person to speak out in his defence was Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner. Tatchell said, I find his views repugnant. But next week, I’m going down to Wembley. They’re holding a massive rally for the most fundamentalist Islamic clerics they can find. And I want to go down with my sign that says “Islam kills queers.” If they arrest him, they’re going to arrest me.
But he went down to Wembley anyway. And he got arrested, anyway.
It is unlikely that you will admire the broader philosophies of both of these men. But it is possible to admire their bravery – their willingness to stand alone before a crowd and say, you’re wrong, and I, alone, will tell you why.
That’s what the hate speech debate is about. You must decide whether or not you believe in the rights of the one to speak out against the many – whether you believe in the right of the minority to have a different view, or not.
It is always going to be the minority view, because the majority’s view will never be classified as hate speech.
I believe that part of the job of democracy is to protect the minority against they tyranny of the majority.
It’s important to say that, just like the Christians handing out Bible extracts in the so-called "Muslim area," neither Hammond nor Tatchell presented any kind of threat to those against whom they were protesting. They were simply presenting ideas that others didn’t like. And they got shut down. Is that what you want to happen to ideas?
As shown by the Hammond and Tatchell examples, that happens under the status quo. How much worse do you think ideas will be treated with hate speech laws?
If you think that someone’s ideas are wrong, if you think they are repugnant and obviously beyond the pale, then you should argue against them. In the marketplace of ideas, if they really are repugnant and wrong, you’ll win. The proper remedy for the delivery of someone’s speech, which you think or know to be wrong, is the exercise of your own right to free speech – not the limitation of theirs.
Think about what happens if we don’t take that approach. If, rather than listen and then confront, you just get to shut down the debate by having the person carted away or silenced, then you may like it – for as long as your views, your ideas, are the ones not being trampled on.
To protect your freedom of speech, it’s necessary to protect everyone’s freedom of speech – even those whom you find unsettling or unpleasant.
We need to preserve the right to shock and offend. Apart from anything else, often it is the shocking and offensive notion that on reflection and debate and struggle emerges as the truth. Think of those who first said to their scandalised peers, you know, I think that women should have the right to vote. Shocking. Offensive. Published. Debated. Vindicated.
So the right to free speech must necessarily protect repugnant speech. That’s not to say that people can say anything they like – we already have laws against incitement to violence. But hate speech laws go further. They are about stopping the expression of certain ideas per se and that’s wrong.
What kind of majority system requires special protection from the minority even from saying that they disagree? What virtue can be ascribed to a system that can’t stand up to minority criticism?
Every so often an idea will emerge that, through the fire of testing in the battle of ideas, will be of some use to society.
As I picture Peter Tatchell, alone, representing no threat to anyone, being dragged away by the police, away from an enormous group of people, his sign dangling in his hand, I find myself convinced that he had won.
And I prefer to have the potential danger of an extremist, minority fringe with whom we can argue, to the certainty of an over-powerful state with which we cannot.
