seeing the funny side - let's have a heated debate!!

[JoolsTide]

\link{http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13262117,00.html\what do YOU think?}

[noddyholder]

Agree with him totally

[RudolphCAM]

How can there be any debate?

[Caligulights]

This might be a very boring thread!

Yep, agree he's right.

[JoolsTide]

well obviously someone sees the need for a Bill and RW et al feel the need to form a coalition - so I'm assuming there are two opposing views!

[winnie1]

Not much of a debate here. I agree with RA. The proposed law is ridiculous!

[SenoraPostrophe]

Well he's right about criticising religious ideas, but thre is a big difference between that and criticising a person for their reigion. Does anyone have a link to what the bill actually says?

[pantomimedame]

Proposed bill, as far as I've heard it described, would create a new sort of discrimination against atheists and agnostics. Completely wrong-headed IMO. We must be free to argue about ideas – that's the very basis of a free society. No idea should be protected from debate, whether that's belief in one particular route to God or in one political party or system.

[Caligulights]

It's frighteningly authoritarian. Under the proposed new legislation, Dave Allen would not have been allowed on TV, and I very much doubt if Life of Brian could have been distributed. I think you should be able to criticise someone for their religion, just as you should be allowed to criticise them for their political views. I don't see why religion - any religion - should be exempt from criticism. As Pantomimedame says, it's discrimination against atheists. Our ideas aren't protected from ridicule, why should anyone else's be?

[RudolphCAM]

The proposed bill is yet another example of pc gone mad - fascism

[sis]

I'd like to know more about the bits of the Bill that Rowan Atkinson finds unacceptable. If the aim is stop incitement to religious hatred then I support that idea but would like to know which bits are making people like Rowan Atkinson protest. Anyone got any more details?

[WhizzzYouAMerryXmas]

There was a bit in the Sunday Times about this - I'll see if I can find a link

[WhizzzYouAMerryXmas]

Couldn't do the link so heres a copy

Blackadder fights law that could catch out comedians - Maurice Chittenden

THE comedy actor Rowan Atkinson is taking centre stage at Westminster tomorrow in a bid to persuade the government to drop a “harsh” new law devised to punish extremists who incite religious hatred.

The Blackadder star will tell MPs and peers that the legislation will catch comedians in its net. Atkinson, who impersonated the Archbishop of Canterbury in one Blackadder episode and gave mock sermons from the pulpit in Not the Nine O’clock News, says it will criminalise satirical sketches about religious figures.

It could also outlaw such Blackadder characters as the “baby-eating” Bishop of Bath and Wells who disposed of his opponents with a red hot poker.

The actor is being backed by an all-party group of MPs, the Barnabas Fund, which campaigns to help persecuted Christian minorities and those who have converted to the faith, and the National Secular Society.

Atkinson, 50 next month, will tell the meeting that he could be prosecuted for such past skits as showing hundreds of Muslims bowed at prayer with a voiceover saying that the search for the ayatollah’s contact lens goes on.

He will also give a warning that the law could ban films such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which was criticised on its release in 1979 for being anti-Christian.

Atkinson first took up the cudgels against the proposed law three years ago when it was to have been included in an anti-terrorism bill promoted by David Blunkett, the home secretary, in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

It was dropped from that act but has been included in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, which is due to get its second reading in the Commons on Tuesday. This would make it an offence to use words or wave a banner deemed to incite religious hatred. The maximum penalty would be six months’ imprisonment. Existing public order offences cover only racial hatred.

Atkinson will argue that while the government will claim comedians are not a target, the new law will attack freedom of speech.

“Freedom of expression must be protected for artists and entertainers and we must not accept a bar on the lampooning of religion and religious leaders,” he said yesterday.

“There is an obvious difference between the behaviour of racist agitators who can be prosecuted under existing laws and the activities of satirists and writers who may choose to make comedy or criticism of religious belief, practices or leaders, just as they do with politics. It is one of the reasons why we have free speech.”

Opponents of the bill say there is already sufficient legislation to deal with attacks on religion. Last week a minister in an obscure sect called Church of England (Continuing) was ordered not to go within 30 metres of a Mormon church or to telephone its members after being accused of bombarding them with 4,000 telephone calls and text messages.

Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, is one of the organisers of tomorrow’s rally at Portcullis House, the block of MPs’ offices opposite the Commons. He said: “In a liberal society we have to allow religions to be lampooned and criticised.”

But Nigel McCullough, the Bishop of Manchester, said bishops in the House of Lords would support the new measure. He said that while religious communities such as Judaism and Sikhism were already protected against incitement to hatred, the law needed to be levelled to give protection to other religions, especially Islam.

“Equality before the law is important. All those who experience harassment and threats because of their religion, or lack of it, are entitled to protection,” he said.

[JoolsTide]

I believe that there will always be SOMEONE offended by SOMETHING and you can't cover all bases.

Let's get real!

Love the 'contact lens' quote - hilarious (so there!)

[WhizzzYouAMerryXmas]

I just start laughing at the thought of Mr Bean talking to MPs !! You just couldn't take him seriously !

[JoolsTide]

what happended to old adage 'laugh and the world laughs with you .....'

Life of Brian? - class!

[WhizzzYouAMerryXmas]

Absolutely ....."what have the Romans ever done for us ?"

[JoolsTide]

speak up!

(sermon on the mount)

oh and 'blessed are the cheese makers' LOL

[WhizzzYouAMerryXmas]

"Shut up Big Nose"

(Going to have to get the video out in a mo !)

[JoolsTide]

ditto - sod 'em - its funny!

Always look on the bright side of life te-tum, te-tum, te-tum, te tum te tum te tum'

some people just can't manage it!

[MariNativityPlay]

Um, I'd like to find out more about Bishop Nigel McCullough's specific concerns re Islam not enjoying the same degree of protection under current law as Judaism and Sikhism. I was not aware of this. If that really is true then maybe this amendment is not a completely pointless exercise, but I agree that as it is being represented in the media it has its ridiculous side. And I don't have much confidence in the current government to sort the good points of the bill from the bad ones...

[DickWhittingtonsCat]

ATM, very old blasphemy laws protect Christians, and the race discrimination laws protect Jews and Sikhs, but anybody with a different religion or philosophical belief is excluded from that protection. Incidentally, discrimination at work (including offensive "jokes") on ground of religion or belief has been unlawful since December 2003 anyway.

[DickWhittingtonsCat]

BTW, the employment laws also protect people with a "philosophical belief" so atheists, agnostics, and arguably pagans and humanists, are also protected against discrimination at work.

[MariNativityPlay]

Thanks DWC. Well in that case I think the new bill should close the loophole with regard to persecuting a PERSON because of their religious belief if that faith is Islam or Hinduism, or any other faith not currently covered.
It should not be so draconian as to prevent the free debate about all faiths and none.
But if yobs attacking traditionally dressed Muslims leaving the mosque are getting away with not being prosecuted because Islam isn't covered under current legislation, then that should be rectified.

[sis]

This is what I don't understand - making jokes about a religion does not necessarily involve inciting hatred about the religion so surely the Bill covers 'jokes' which incite religious hatred only? I'd really like to see the bits of the proposed legislation that is supposed to stop freedom of speech in all jokes about religion to make sure it is not the usual scare-mongering about new legislation (eg the introduction of the national minimum wage was supposed to cost millions of pounds and lead to thousands of job cuts).

[Caligulights]

The problem is that whether something incites hatred or not depends on your interpretation. Which will mean that big organisations that the BBC will err on the side of caution, avoiding the possibility of being sued. So it's de facto censorship of ideas.

Physical harrassment is already against the law, and if yobs are not being prosecuted for attacking or harrassing Muslims outside a Mosque, that's the fault of the Crown Prosecution Service or the Police, not of the law itself. The law already exists to protect anyone, whatever their beliefs or state of being, against this sort of harassment.