Necessary tolerance of religious vilification

The Act was designed to “promote racial and religious tolerance by prohibiting certain conduct involving the vilification of persons on the grounds of race or religious belief”. The evangelical Christian group Catch the Fire Ministries had sponsored a seminar on Islam, attended by three Muslims. It was later found that two of the speakers, Daniel Scot and Danny Nalliah, intended to vilify Muslims, not simply discuss Islam.

To classify the anti-Muslim comic along the same lines could be extreme. Where would we stop? In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins describes religious faith as an “evil”, and asks: “Isn't it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought about?” Is Dawkins guilty of religious vilification? At least, in his defence, Dawkins could argue that he vilifies all religions equally!

“Not all behaviour that offends religious feelings or beliefs necessarily constitutes advocacy of religious hatred,” notes the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. However, when freedom of expression results in unambiguous incitement to religious hatred, and particularly when violence is a likely short- or long-term consequence, a line in the sand has been crossed and action must be taken.

Short of such extreme situations, it is usually better to err on the side of freedom of expression; to foster tolerance by allowing mature, pluralistic societies such as ours to find, as much as possible, their own balance between freedom of speech and freedom from vilification. It is their choice to make, but I hope any Muslims exposed to the booklet I picked up simply laugh it off then toss it into the recycling bin.