At 0810 on Tuesday morning Jacqui Smith went on Radio 4's Today programme to explain the government's new counter terrorism strategy. The Home Secretary was at pains to emphasise that non violent Islamist groups must be allowed freedom of speech. Ms Smith told listeners:
"I've been very clear that one of the important values we have in this country is free speech. People should be able to say what they believe, but they shouldn't necessarily do that without challenge. An argument we're making is not that these views become illegal, but that we as government, citizens and others will challenge the views of those who seek to undermine our shared values."
At 17.41 that same day, less than ten hours later, the government used a 3 line whip to force through the Commons the abolition of the 'Free Speech' clause that the House of Lords last year made the government insert into the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. The 'Free Speech' clause essentially sought to ensure that whilst stirring up hatred against people who were homosexual would become criminalised, free discussion of the morality of homosexual practice (i.e. beliefsabout sexual ethics) would not be. In particular, it sought to protect Christian ministers from being prosecuted for simply stating what the Church has for the last two thousand years held to be the teaching of Scripture, that sexual relationships outside of hetrosexual marriage are in the Bible's words 'sinful'.
The government is seeking to abolish this 'Free Speech' clause for purely ideological reasons. In fact, the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act has not even technically become law yet. During Tuesday's Commons debate, the government argued that the 'Free Speech' clause would no longer be necessary as the Attorney General would draw up prosecution guidelines for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). However, as Conservative MP Gerald Howarth pointed out to the house, the existing CPS guidelines on prosecution refer to 'dislike' of the 'perceived lifestyle' of lesbian and gay people and as such, he observed, we could be faced with a situation where anyone who expresses a dislike for this kind of behaviour would face criminal prosecution.
Now let me make it clear that I wholeheartedly agree that it should be a criminal offence to incite someone else to threaten another human being. It does not matter whether the victim is a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, a homosexual or even dare I say it...the former chairman of a bailed out bank! They are first and foremost human beings and as such deserving of dignity, respect and protection from malicious threats. As such, I would support seeking to criminalise, for example, rap songs that say "hang lesbians with a long piece of rope" (an example cited by the gay rights lobbying group Stonewall) precisely because it is stirring up hatred that threatens people. However, in pushing through the abolition of the 'Free Speech' clause on a 3 line whip, the government, staunchly supported by the Liberal-Democrats have moved from protecting people to protecting a belief system(that 'homosexual practice is morally good'). In doing so, they have exposed Christian ministers, some of the most upright and charitable of our citizens to the risk of imprisonment for simply referring to sexual relationships outside of hetrosexual marriage as 'sin', something that the Christian Church has understood to be the clear teaching of Scripture since the time of Christ.
It is therefore tragically ironic that on the very same day that the government pushed through this legislation, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith should go on Radio 4 to emphasise that we should protect freedom of speech for radical Islamists in Britain.
Now imagine that you live in a terraced house in the inner city. On one side of you lives a radical Islamist. This man advocates the introduction of sharia into Britain, a legal system that gives the legal testimony of non Muslims and women only half the weight of that of a Muslim man and imposes the death penalty on any Muslim man who embraces another faith - as it also does on any Muslim or non Muslim alike who says anything perceived to be critical of Muhammad. If that man is your neighbour, then the Home Secretary has gone on prime time radio this week to emphasise to you that this is a free country and this man has an absolute right to spread his views, no matter how offensive, or incompatible with a free democratic society those views may be.
Now suppose that on the other side of your terraced house lives a Christian minister. Perhaps, as is the case with a number of Christian ministers, he has fled to the UK because as a Christian there were threats to his life in his own country. Here is a man who cares deeply for the community that he now serves here and has dedicated his life to teaching from the Bible and helping to mend broken lives. However, this man will now risk being sent to prison if he dares to suggest that sexual relationships outside of hetrosexual marriage are, according to both the Bible and the historic teaching of the Christian Church, 'sin'.
This is the muddle that the government has got itself into because it has moved from protecting people, which is the proper function of government in a free society, to trying to protect an idea or belief (that 'homosexual practice is morally good') from criticism, something that actually undermines the whole basis of a free society.
A free democratic society can only exist where there is freedom to debate and to criticise other people's views and beliefs. I dare say that this article will stimulate a fair amount of debate and criticism, not all of which will be by any means sympathetic to what I have said! Indeed some may even be deeply hurtful. But the freedom to have that debate is the essence of a free society. Neither I, nor gay rights activists, nor Muslims, Christians or anyone else has any right in a free society to have their beliefs and practices protected by the criminal law from criticism.
In the light of this it is now essential that the House of Lords fulfils its constitutional function as the guardian of the nation's freedoms in the face of a government that is trampling on historic British rights. The Lords must work to ensure that fundamental British rights such as freedom of speech, including the right to criticise others' beliefs and practices, are upheld. If we do not tenaciously hold onto historic core British values, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion, then we undermine the very ground we claim to hold in the face of Islamist extremists who want to take these freedoms from us.