Flags removed ahead of Pride event = hate crime?

[Windy23]

Not sure how to feel about this. I don't agree with someone taking the flags down but is it really a hate crime?

BBC News - Hate crime probe after Arran Pride flags removed
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgq3ekyjeveo

No. The OP was asking it it was a hate crime. See below and please take careful note of the question marks. Asking if something counts as a hate crime or not is not the same as minimising. If the crime fulfils the criteria of a hate crime (as per the law) then it can be prosecuted as one. If it does not fulfil the criteria, then it isn't one. Please see this link: https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime

Quote of OP including the title:
" Flags removed ahead of Pride event = hate crime? 273 replies

Windy23 · Yesterday 17:40

Not sure how to feel about this. I don't agree with someone taking the flags down but is it really a hate crime?

BBC News - Hate crime probe after Arran Pride flags removed
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgq3ekyjeveo ".

I haven’t seen any posts mimimising the removal of the flags. But the discussion has moved on somewhat to posters talking about how the LGB community, especially lesbians, feel that it’s all about the T now and they should accept lady dick or they’re called sexual racists.

Wish some people would get their head out their arses and look at the bigger picture.

Third said that '... to be a hate crime it has to be a crime first...'

This is correct as per the CPS link I posted.

There is no evidence this is even a crime, let alone a homophobic hate crime. We don't know if it was a drunken dare, or what the motive even was.

I think it’s just a general inability to understand that definitions, by their very nature, exclude all the things they aren’t.

Exactly. If you can't define a group, how can you define hate? Or even that it was hate against a group that cannot even be defined?

Which suggests flying a Pride flag is a hate crime under s4.(8)(ii) of the Act.

You need to consider the Orwellian Scottish legislation. Though even under that I cannot see how removing a flag would count.

Did it even have planning permission?

Many people would consider the traditional 6-coloured Pride flag as trans exclusionary, so perhaps it was a trans activist taking the flag down. Would that be a homophobic hate crime then?

Yes. I certainly feel that way over the trans flag, it makes my heart race with fear, and I feel unsafe and my safety and life is threatened whenever I see one displayed anywhere. To me, that flag is a hate crime all of itself, just as much as the Nazi National Socialist ensign flag is.

Thank you for pointing out my error.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/contents

True. That is something for @suggestionsplease1 to ponder. What if if were a trans person that took the flags (if it were the traditional gay pride only flag) down. Is suggestionsplease1 going to admit that that is a 'hate crime'? That trans acting against gay people and removing their gay pride flag is a hate crime? Oh how if this is what happened, I would LOVE to see their face in real time! Wow. lol.

It's those pesky women speaking without male permission again isn't it?
It's not as if the opening post was a long one to read - the OP merely asked:

"Not sure how to feel about this. I don't agree with someone taking the flags down but is it really a hate crime?" with a link to a BBC article.

Yet you seem to have been flailing all over this thread arguing that women shouldn't discuss these issues for some niche reason of your own.
Very odd. 🙄

Gender Ideology has that effect on brain cells it seems.

Quite!
Presumably the police haven’t even spoken to any witnesses yet… I’m guessing this probably more likely to be a crime of too much alcohol as a counter protest would have been more productive if that was the intention…

Nothing at all to do with Arran but certainly covers the inherent conflict between the two very different issues: sexuality/sexual orientation versus identity/gender beliefs. Mullahs literally transing away the gays: https://archive.is/vS9Sh

Equally, is it a hate crime if transactivists take a Labrys flag or a banner from lesbians and pull it apart?

I haven’t read the article, so I don’t know if it’s the police or the reporter that’s claiming it’s a hate crime, but whichever it is, they’re getting ahead of themselves.

It is a crime, though a relatively minor one. Nobody was hurt and the value of the items probably wasn’t that high. It may have been simple vandalism, which obviously is a crime which is widely ignored. Transactivists are well known for frequently leaving minor waves of vandalism behind them when they march. Generally people shrug and start to tidy up and nobody bothers much with who the culprit was.

As it is a crime, it may or may not qualify as a hate crime. That depends entirely on the motivation behind it. It certainly isn’t a hate crime, just because it was items belonging to “LGBTQ” people that were taken.

Either way, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t go far beyond mildly antisocial behaviour. It’s less bad, in my opinion, than sending death or rape threats on Twitter. Anyone claiming to feel genuinely frightened because their flags were knicked is probably overreacting. If someone took a flag that belonged to me, I’d roll my eyes a bit and buy another. I think anyone doing more in a one-off situation is probably either a bit disturbed anyway or has a victim complex.

Good lord! Bit dramatic

No not really. Men waving that flag have chanted into the crowd to "punch a terf in the face". Later after that first time that was said, a woman was badly beaten up.

Men make all sorts of rape threats and death threats, 'skinning them alive', burning us in a fire, punching us, 'knifing' us.

ALL while waving that flag.

It represents trans terrorism and violence to me.

My source on Arran tells me that someone has been arrested. I don't know how reliable this is, tbh, but there is CCTV at various points along that street, so the Crime of the Century may be on the way to being solved.

Whoever it is - for whatever reason - an 'arrest' over some flag tat is ridiculous!! When police won't come to calls out about domestic violence, won't investigate rape etc, it's clear perhaps there are too many police and we need to defund them if this is what they waste their time on when real crimes are happening.

Option E: they were progress pride flags (as they all seem to be these days) and they were taken down by a frustrated feminist* who understands what that flag really represents and knows that the shops and organisations agreeing to have those flags attached above them have no idea, and think they are just 'being kind'.

I am *a frustrated feminist in a similarly rural/small population to Arran. There is currently progress pride bunting all over my small town. I would never take any of it down, either from a shop front or a civic monument. I know though, that most/all? of the business owners who have agreed to display that bunting really have no idea what that flag represents, and how feminists and many lesbians feel about it. I would love to find a way to explain it to them!
I also see how many other community groups who work tirelessly in the background to keep youth clubs open, run community events etc could do with support and visibility and they don't get it, while the pride committee have the 'cheek'(?) to ask, and people in a small community don't feel they can say no to giving donations or putting flags up without looking rude.

If it is a crime to remove a flag then presumable it is also a crime to remove a sticker?

Exactly. It seems that the trans activists, the likes of @suggestionsplease1 and @Namechangeforobviousreasons100 are very concerned about what MIGHT happen but not about things that ARE happening.

They are very concerned that the motivation for the flag removal MIGHT be ‘hate’ and dismiss more likely scenarios like drunken shenanigans or an objection to the homophobic ‘Progress pride’ flag .

They are very concerned that the message this flag removal send out MIGHT be transmitted across the waves and read by some other people as a statement of intent against a group of people hitherto undefined.

They are very concerned that this signal MIGHT be interpreted by some as a call to violence and are happy for people to be condemned before due process has taken place.

The fact remains that no actual hate has been communicated or proven, no actual negative message intended and no actual harm has been done to anyone.

Meanwhile actual people are getting hurt or burgled and actually harmed but the police constantly claim a lack of resources. Are the pps mentioned above happy with this state of affairs?