Wilful blindness, religion and free speech

However, the general criminal law prohibiting incitement to violence calls for a close analysis of the facts of any given case. The visiting cleric's critics paid little or no attention to the explicit and tacit theological foundations of his view that homosexuality is wicked and contrary to unalterable divine law (or what one group of the cleric's co-religionists in the United States in reaction to the Orlando murders called "a strict Abrahamic morality"). This can be done by viewing the You Tube recording ofthe same cleric's 2013 lecture at the University of Michigan.

It is very hard to see how anyone who is prepared to pay close attention to that lecture could discern any evidence of incitement in the sense of a clear and present urging or encouraging of attendees, viewers or listeners to resort to violence.

In his silken-voiced tone, the cleric systematically sets out the relevant unambiguous scriptural message that homosexuality is evil, that the sinner should encouraged to repent and deserves compassion. The full extent of this theology is that even the application of the death penalty – which can only be imposed in accordance with substantive and procedural religious law - is said to be a release from the evil of physical homosexual acts because the sinner will be despatched to the afterlife which is of far greater consequence than the earthly life. How can any individual be prevented from believing this or anything else?

There is a dreadful internal religious "logic" about the controversial cleric's claim. It is based on the final of the three revealed Abrahamic traditions. By definition, the Almighty's revealed truth is, for its votaries, comprehensively perfect for all time.

For present purposes, it is enough to state the obvious: an overwhelming majority of Australians do not share the views either that religious law should have any paramountcy or that a person's sexual preference/orientation in the twenty-first century free and open society could seriously be put forward as a justification for any earthly punishment. In the case of any similar religious prohibition on fornication, many Australians would regard it as just too silly for words.

It should not be remotely controversial to contend that there is a strong public interest in discussing all religious beliefs. This has been borne out by more recent events and, in particular, the Grand Mufti's detailed statement responding to the Prime Minister's criticism.

Moreover, Australians should not have to remind themselves that we live in a society where freedom of religion includes the freedom to regard all religion as superstition, and to say so, a freedom given both explicit and implied protection in the Australian Constitution.

Moreover, it is widely appreciated that it is inherent in monotheism that the Almighty has compassion and expects all his creatures to act compassionately. Formal Uriah Heap-like hand-wringing expressions of compassion for homosexuals (for being what they are), such as that of the visiting cleric and his co-religionists who share his loathing of sinful homosexual acts, carry no earthly weight and are made at no cost.

A simple test would be to inquire whether the clerics accept or reject the general proposition that in Australia there is as much of a right to criticise religious ideas, beliefs and practices as there is a right to criticise political, economic, social or indeed any other ideas, beliefs and practices. The Grand Mufti's statement reads very much like a rejection.

The visiting cleric's ghastly painstaking 2013 lecture and similar presentations (many of them hate-drenched rants) are available on the internet and are communicated by other like-minded clerics to their co-religionists in Australia. It seems tolerably clear that the theological views - anchored as they manifestly are in scripture and the traditions - are shared by more than just a handful of the clerics' Australian followers.

The dogmatic certainty of the folks who trot out the "nothing to do with religion" trope is further proof positive (if it is needed) of the undisguised anti-democratic nature of "hate speech" censorship. Their selective ideological urge to muzzle critics of religious thinking like that which applauds punishment for engaging in homosexual acts displays contempt for the long struggle to decriminalise homosexuality and to secure redress for persons subjected to discrimination in employment and otherwise on the basis of sexual preference.

The idea that, for fear of hurting religious sensibilities, Australians should refrain from blunt speaking about religious ideas whilst public money should, simultaneously, be outlaid to facilitate the investigation of a statutory complaint (since abandoned) designed to muzzle the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart for distributing a pastoral letter on the same-sex marriage, Don't Mess With Marriage, published by the Australian Catholic bishops is far beyond being merely risible. It bespeaks the reinvigoration of sectarianism in Australia in the name of multiculturalism. It sits well with the anti-democratic proposition that Australians should not be permitted to express their views in a same-sex plebiscite for no other reason than that it will be "divisive" because they might express an impermissible opinion.

The Australian Human Rights Commission should be confronting this issue rather than wasting public money on facilitating proposals for a national blasphemy law to be achieved by amending s 18C of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act 1975 to include a privilege intended to insulate one set of religious ideas from normal public debate.