England Jails Homophobes

[ramboondiea]

Wishing death on someone for whatever reason is a view best kept to yourself. I support freedom of speech, and that includes negative views on homosexuals, but asking (nay, telling) them to be killed is not something that can be tolerated in a modern, civil country.

If you really look at it, there is a, in my opinion, strong argument to not jail them over this. If they were inciting people to murder gay people, they need to be removed from society. But in this case they seem to have been campaigning for gay people to be executed under the law, and that would be as defensible as campaigning for, say, rapists to be executed.

The guys are wankers, of that I have no doubt, lol. But I'm not too keen on going down a road of "don't upset people".

just a couple of things wrong with your argument, for starters there can be no campaign for any law that would end with capital punishment being re-instated, which will not be happening in Britain. secondly any campaign that attacks a non-criminal group is afforded no protection by the law. which if you look at what these men where doing they where inciting nothing but hate, which is in fact a crime, and if they had any proof that they had physically attacked any homosexuals then there jail time would be significantly longer

 

[ElPatron]

organised lynchings

That they were trying to pass legally.

It's called democracy. It's silly, but so is ACTA and PIPA.

 

[MrTub]

I would be behind them being in prison if they were putting around leaflets calling for the `legal` death of any race/religion.

You are trying to make an argument against free speech there. There is nothing wrong with wanting a law to be made, even if it asks for the death penalty. Just because YOU dislike the death penalty (as do I), doesn't mean it's not okay for others to want it.

You are walking down the path of making your own moral law. That's bad. That's what countries that KILL gay people have.

Nooooo. I am simply saying that hate speech (which this was) is not protected and you can be prosecuted for it.
That is what the law is.
It's not my moral law, its the law law.

Inciting hatred against a group (such as gays) is against the law. If a bunch of guys were doing this (and if you read it clearly they certainly were), they shouldn't act suprised when they go to jail.

Inciting hatred against a sexual orientation is only illegal in the UK and only has been for about a month. Inciting VIOLENCE is illegal in more places.

It's illegal in Sweden as well. A pastor was jailed for calling homosexuals a plague and such while preaching.

That was overturned on grounds of religious freedom, as what he said was based on the Bible. It even went all the way to the Supreme Court. He didn't advocate violence though, "just" called homosexuality a cancer and that no homosexual could be a Christian.

Huh.. I didnt know it got overturned. I guess you learn something new every day

lol, he even got a wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Åke_Green

 

[Aur0ra145]

It's beginning to look a lot like 1984... Good job England.

 

[DaJoW]

It being common doesn't make it any more tolerable. Especially considering the majority of the forum posters are Americans, and the majority of those do actually seem to think they're the freest most socially advanced country on the planet.

And before you drop your jaw like a lifeless weight, point you accusatory appendage in my direction and scream 'HYPOCRITE' at the top of your lungs.

I'm not saying my country is the most free either. The UK has it's share of problems. Unquestionably so. I'm just so sick of seeing people blindly touting their milkshakes as the bestest flavours of all the yards when they've never so much as a glanced at what the other yards have to offer.

Let alone the the ones they're serving with icecream down the road.

Oh god so many quotes, how am I supposed to reply to everyone? ;_;

Anyways... I don't actually think America is the best nation, just the one with the most individual freedom in conjunction with a functioning society (last bit added to pre-empt morons who will try to say SOMALIA LOL).

I don't actually view most western european nations as inferior soon-to-be cesspools (except for the UK, France and Sweden), but I certainly do love mocking their idiotic self-destroying policies.

Feel free to do the same to my current nation, spread the love!

Hey now, you don't get to attack the French, that's Britain's domain.

And yet, the UK, France and Sweden are consistently ranked as having more personal freedoms, and in the case of France and Sweden, more social mobility than the US.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Thank god those douches are off the streets, though this will only enforce hatred of muslims, so it's a double-eged sword.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

Oh, big fucking deal. So he said "the death sentence" instead of "death". Yeah, all of a sudden it's civilized rational discourse. So when someone walks up to me and says "You deserve to die, and here are several acceptable ways in which to kill you, all of which have been outlawed in every civilized country in the world," I should respond "Why, a jaunty good day to you sir, thanks so much for sharing your opinion."

Moron.

So rather then substantiating your arguments you resort to simple personal attack? Awesome!


The point is that they are not promoting individual violence against me (and judging by your level of rancor, you as well) and others like me. As such it's not a direct threat as long as their opinions don't become law, and that decision is what civilized discourse is ABOUT.

So you should be able to explain to him why his views are wrong and move on.

 

[ElPatron]

Don't be naive. They weren't lobbying for legislation. They were trying to convince people to burn the gays. That's not how you go about passing the law. There are proper channels for a reason.

>2012
>still expecting legislation to be passed by proper channels

That's not how it works, trough the last months we have seen perfect examples of trying to pass legislation trough our backs.

Now excuse me, I will try to throw those Commies handing flyers in jail because their political views threaten my way of life.

 

[Frission]

Welcome to America, where you can say homosexuals should die as long as it's in a judiciary fashion. Also we're the freest country on earth even when it comes to hate speech and things that have nothing to do with reality.

It's beginning to look a lot like 1984... Good job England.

Actually 1984 by George Orwell, was a world where everyone could be criminalized for thinking something. These men were imprisoned for going into streets and campaigning for the death of a group of people. Hardly 1984. Also try using other dystopian novels than 1984. Everyone uses it as an example for government control, when it could also be against wide-spread jingoism, fanaticism and loss of compassion for a fellow human being. Something which is reminiscent of another country.

 

[Charli]

Yeah, I have no problem with this.
These people are actively campaigning for the deaths of people cause they don't agree with who they love. This kind of shit has no place in our society.

Not much else to build upon there for me, so I'll have to just say that. ^

 

[Will Bowes]

damn right it doesnt! people who are gay or bi or whatever are really no different to the rest of us

 

[MC K-Mac]

Look, nobody hates people leaving their culture behind and then telling others how their culture is wrong as much as me.

But you just admitted that you won't respect someone's opinion.

To their eyes, they are trying to make "democracy". Trying to get the public to agree with them. They live in a democratic country and got jail time for trying to take an active participation on the country's politics.

To their eyes, the situation is as fucked up as it is to gay people.

Okay, you responded civilly to me, despite the fact that I insulted you. Therefore, I feel I owe you an attempt to respond to your argument as though it made sense.

Distributing leaflets containing hate literature is not "making democracy". It is not "taking an active participation on the country's politics". If they honestly wish to amend Britain's criminal code to make homosexuality a capital offense (AND to reinstate stoning and hanging as legal forms of capital punishment for said offense), then they should write their MP and say so. When the next election comes they should endorse whichever candidate runs on a platform of killing all homosexuals. If that isn't "direct" enough for them, they should run themselves, and canvass the neighbourhood saying that a vote for them is a vote for dead gays. And Good. Fucking. Luck With That.

Look, I understand the point these people think they're right. My point is that their opinion doesn't matter because it's fucking stupid. You accuse me of not respecting someone's opinion. Well, do you honestly think these people's opinion is worthy of respect? And even if you do think their opinion is valid, surely you don't think that *ALL* opinions are deserving of respect, do you? What about the opinion that all babies should be impaled on stakes and burned alive? Or that all nuclear weapons should be detonated immediately? How ridiculous do I have to make the analogy before you finally concede this point?

 

[Aur0ra145]

Welcome to America, where you can say homosexuals should die as long as it's in a judiciary fashion. Also we're the freest country on earth even when it comes to hate sppech and things that have nothing to do with reality.

It's beginning to look a lot like 1984... Good job England.

Actually 1984 by George Orwell, was a world where everyone could be criminalized for thinking something. These men were imprisoned for going into streets and campaigning for the death of a group of people. Hardly 1984. Also try using other dystopian novels than 1984. Everyone uses it as an example for government control, when it could also be against wide-spread jingoism, fanaticism and loss of compassion for a fellow human being. Something which is reminiscent of another country.

What I don't get or understand about this new UK law is who says what's hate speech and what is not?

Being jailed for saying something (which isn't revealing military or state secrets) is ridiculous.

 

[Platypus540]

Why can't the US do this to the WBC?

Because we don't jail people for unpopular opinions like the "free" nations of Europe do.

I didn't mean just for having the opinion that homosexuals are satanic. Even if it is stupid and narrow-minded, hell it's their opinion and they can have it. I meant for the protests, etc. Those are pretty clearly unjust and I think should be qualified as hate crimes.

 

[Naeras]

What I don't get or understand about this new UK law is who says what's hate speech and what is not?

Being jailed for saying something (which isn't revealing military or state secrets) is ridiculous.

These guys were openly admitting that they wanted to, and thus possibly were planning to, kill people. Death threats, no matter if they're aimed at specific persons or specific groups, aren't covered by the freedom of speech for a reason.

 

[ablac]

And this friends, is why Britain is awesome. We actually shut the loud mouth bigots up and lock em in cells if we have to rather than give them a podium and let them run the country.