The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is about creating a new criminal offence (with a maximum penalty of 7 years in jail) of 'stirring up hatred against people on religious grounds'. It does this by adding new parts to an older law: the Public Order Act 1986.

3) The proposed law could worryingly reduce freedom of speech and in particular, the freedom to preach the Gospel.

4) The way the law is written means that it would be no defence for a vicar or pastor to say that they had been preaching in good faith or that they had not intended to stir up hatred. It would not even be a defence to say that they had not stirred up religious hatred - all that is needed is that it was likely that their words would stir up hatred.

5) The ability to prosecute people of other religions because they teach beliefs contrary to your own would be very divisive and create damaging hostility between different groups in the community.

6) For these reasons, the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill should be opposed.

What may happen next?

The Religious Hatred Bill has already been passed by the House of Commons and on the 11th October 2005, the House of Lords will debate it. If, after various stages of deliberation they agree to the law, then it will be passed. If they vote against it, it will be blocked for the time being. However, as with the Fox Hunting Bill, the government will then try and force the legislation through using the Parliament Act, without the Lords' agreement. There is the possibility that enough MPs would rebel to block this move. It is also quite possible that the Lords will not refuse to accept the Bill entirely, but will instead try and amend it so that then it is sent back to the House of Commons for them to vote. If the MPs then reject the amendments, the situation with the Parliament Act would arise again. If the MPs accepted the amendments, this might offer some protection to Christian preachers, but it would be far from an absolute guarantee of freedom to preach the gospel.

Short summary of the immediate future of the Religious Hatred Bill

When the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill goes back to the House of Lords in October, there are essentially 3 things that could happen:

1) The Lords could PASS the Bill in its present form, just as the Commons have done, and IT WOULD BECOME LAW. This is the worst-case scenario.

2) The Lords and Commons could work together somehow to AGREE AMENDMENTS to the Bill to deal with some of the concerns and a revised Bill could then BECOME LAW. This is an improvement and politically the most acceptable to all sides, but it does not guarantee against freedom to preach the gospel being restricted to a greater or lesser extent.

3) The Lords could REFUSE to pass the Bill (or insist on amendments the Commons find unacceptable) and the Government could then try to use the PARLIAMENT ACT but in order to do so would have to wait until the next parliamentary session and go through the whole procedure again. If they were successful then the original Bill would BECOME LAW but if the Commons rebelled and voted against the Bill, it WOULD BE DEFEATED entirely. This is a dangerous course and could result in the worst-case scenario (above) but also raises the possibility of the best-case scenario occurring: the Bill being entirely defeated.

Strategy

One of the greatest challenges facing the Christian response to the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is in deciding what will be the most effective way to oppose the Bill.

Perhaps the most important thing Christian leaders of Churches, Charities and other organisations can do, is simply to raise the awareness of their members, and encourage them to stand up against the Bill, and certainly not to accept it as it is because of the dangers that the law may well pose.