VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Cynic|DATE|1377182767|CONTENT|@Jez - that act was deliberately mis-named in order to try to get it passed: it has absolutely nothing to do with race at all.

What was in the original bill was the same wording as in the racial hatred section of the Public Order Act 1986 - where someone racially abusive, insulting or threatening to the extent that racial hatred is &#039;likely&#039; to be stirred up could be prosecuted.

It was claimed that having the same apply to religion was just giving equality, which is clearly not true - it&#039;s not a valid comparison. Racial abuse is without justification and should not be tolerated, and should indeed be legislated against.

Religion, however, is an ideology or a set of ideologies which someone chooses to believe (or not), so there is no valid reason why anyone shouldn&#039;t be abusive or insulting towards it. 

Surprisingly, it was the House of Lords which had the words &#039;Abusive or Insulting&#039; removed from the bill, and as passed the act merely criminalises behaviour which is threatening and likely to stir up religious hatred - making it pretty pointless as there was already a variety of legislation which criminalised threatening behaviour.

So the act in the form in which it exists is largely pointless - but at least the HoL stopped the Blair government from introducing what was effectively a new blasphemy law - and make no mistake; that&#039;s what it was intended as.|IP-ADDRESS|164.40.216.226|MODERATIONFLAG|