British new Labour is attempting to pass a bill called the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Richard Hart, in this Times Online article entitled God save the heretic, explores some potential consequences of this Bill if it is passed. You may not agree with the specific things he says about specific religions, but it is worth considering his essential point that
... with our dominant ideology of “secular materialism” (for which read “shopping”), our fringe religious ideologies either vapid or dangerously fundamentalist, both hostile to outside criticism and incapable of self-criticism, and now new Labour’s outrageous attempts to frighten us from even discussing such essential matters openly, our chances of shaping some better religion for our modern selves, and consequently learning to love each other a little more than we have hitherto managed, seem remoter than ever.
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