I notice in the Sun Herald on Sunday that Muslim groups want added to the religious discrimination bill, a new civil remedy that would ‘make it unlawful to engage in conduct that would, or is likely to, harass, threaten, seriously intimidate or vilify a person or group of persons on the grounds of their religious belief or activity’.
Fair enough in principle, but this wording is way too narrow and targeted at those outside the Muslim community so in the spirit of the zeitgeist, lets be fully inclusive.
To this end I propose that if such a clause were to be included then there should also be a counter or secondary clause that says in effect, that it would be ‘unlawful for any RELIGION, representative of any religion or any civilian practitioner of any religion to preach and promote hate or harass, threaten, intimidate or engage in threatening or intimidating activity of non adherents of that religion’.
Who could possibly argue with that?
In effect we end up with a zero sum game where one clause neutralises the other and no religion, racial or cultural group has any real or perceived advantage and the situation remains pretty much as is.