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Can the PSNI tell us how many officers are involved in this investigation? Their rank? How many hours have been put into the investigation?

Graham Veale

"Humanists have as one of their goals the creation of a truely liberal society..."

How appropriate and how almost certainly inadvertent that liberalism and lack of freedom of speech to the degree that when it does not conform to the notion of what values and judgements the liberal humanists would impose must be surpressed are juxtaposed that way. To be liberal means among other things that you must not only act a certain way but you must think along certain lines and you are not permitted to voice any dissenting opinion. This is so despotic. Among other things, it says the ends justifies the means. Reminds me of Canada where they kill you with niceness. It must be a crime in Canada to be not nice. I have to take valium before I go there, their niceness is so infuriationg. Loved Rhea Perlman and John Candy in Canadian Bacon.

gveale, what a daft question. I can only conclude from your question that you think the police should not even bother to investigate an allegation of a homophobic hate crime. That says everything we need to know about where you are coming from.

Hate crime, ie incitement to hate is only one step removed from thought crime, thinking hateful thoughts. Looks like you're right on the verge of 1984.

hate crime i.e. incitement is still against the law...

Augustine of Clippo

No, I think everyone should know just how seriously an investigation of this nature is taken. How you leap to your conclusion is beyond me. I've made it clear time and time again that I believe that the protection of law should be
given to all groups in a free society.

For the life of me, I could not work out how you had me pegged as a conspiracy theorist. Any reading of my posts should have made it clear that I at least read recognised authorities before forming an opinion.

So, apparently you know all there is to know about me by only reading a fraction of my posts.
I can only conclude that you have known me in the past, Gus, and you are hiding behind a pseudonym. If I have offended you in the past, I am sorry. If you disliked me on a personal level, join the club. If you wish to keep insulting me, feel free. I'm much more interested with talking to Brian and others who will attack the ball and not the man. I'll only respond to you in future if I feel you have provided an argument.

Graham Veale

MarcusAurelius

I understand your concern, but doesn't the law already concern itself with matters like "malice aforethought"?Is it so unreasonable to investigate what is going on in people's minds when it affects our own actions or the actions of others? And shouldn't there be some level of control over public discourse?

Graham Veale

gveale #7

No, not at least in the US. The US laws only refer to criminal actions resulting from malice and aforethought, not the malice and aforethought itself. You can think about killing people all you want to, that is not a crime. Only taking action by murdering someone or attempting to murder them or conspiring to murder them is and the consequence of committing it with malace and aforethought is greater. It's the difference for example in many states between first degree murder and second degree murder and the punishment is entirely different. The difference between the two notions is clear. In NI law, the mere thought is on the verge of becoming a crime and speaking that thought is. Where does thought crime end? If someone writes a murder mystery novel, and someone else gets an idea from that novel how to commit a murder and acts on it, is the author guilty of inciting murder? You'd say that is absurd but under NI law is it? What about reporting the news or history? Would the atrocities reported of one group committed against another be considered a crime because it incited hatred among those who were exposed to the reports? What if the reports were one sided? What if the bias is deliberate? This is how books get banned, how wide ranging government censorship is imposed. And it is always justified by being "for the public's common good." This is where the slippery slope of censorship takes you and why the Supreme Court is so afraid of starting down that path. The alternative in a free and democratic country is to allow all points of view including the most vile and abominable to be given full voice and then to trust to the people themselves to use good judgement in sorting the lies from the truth and obeying the law. Only when a clear connection can be drawn between specific speech and resulting criminal action is the speech a specific crime because it was a clearly contributing factor. This is one huge difference between the concept of how government and the people they govern are related to each other in the US and Europe. In the US, those who are governed grant limited power to government and to individuals in government who make the laws for a limited term. Their right to be the ultimate authority and rescind that right to govern is said to be self evident as an unalienable right in the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the nation. The government is always subservient to the people. In Europe it's the other way around, the people are still prisoners of the government. This is the same reason why so much of Europe is so angry about Ireland's vote against the Lisbon Treaty. They dared to dictate to the government what it could not agree to on their behalf. Rest assured, next time around, they probably won't be given that chance again.

dennisjunior1

Not in the US. With a few clear and limited exceptions, there is no crime until an act has been committed no matter what has been said.

The instinct to impose ones will on what people can say and think is universal and exists in the US too. There are many who would make it a crime to burn the US flag as a show of defiance, hatred, political dissent, and incitement to hatred of the United States because the flag is a symbol of the nation. Fortunately, I think every time this gets to the courts it is knocked down unanimously because it violates the right of freedom of speech. Some have even proposed a Constitutional amendment to that effect. Ironically, the only legal way to dispose of an American flag that is worn out is to burn it. It isn't even clear that this law is Constitutional either.

As a member of the Humanist Association of Northern Ireland, let me say that I wholeheartedly agree with the Belfast Humanist Group Statement.

The Humanist Association of Northern Ireland also issued a statement, which appeared in yesterday's Irish Times:

"We in the Humanist Association of Northern Ireland (Humani) would like to express our deep concern at the recent comments made by Iris Robinson MLA. Her verbal attack on the gay community yet again shows that religious values are a dead weight which permeates the psyche of some of our politicians in a way that is extremely damaging for all. It is this psychological condition that is damaging, not homosexuality.

The gay community in Northern Ireland has grown ever more confident in asserting its right to exist. Humani continues to support a pluralist society and we will attend this year's Gay Pride march in Belfast on Saturday, August 2nd.

We hope that as the influence of religion in this country wanes, this kind of primitive belief will become history. - Yours, etc,

Chairman
Kevin Kerr

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Brian
Iris Robinson behaved stupidly - unless ther was a deliberate strategy on the part of the DUP to distract attention from deals at Westminster. And, to put my cards on the table, to cause so much offence for purely political gain is sinister.
Thats why I keep banging on about the Malachi ODoherty article.

Graham Veale

George Orwell said in 1984 that freedom was the ability to say 2+2=4. The free speach that seems to be defended here by Marcus is the freedom to say 2+2=5. I don't think IR should be repremanded by the law for saying this, but I do think it is important to realise that she is wrong. She is not ust politicaly incorrect, but just plain incorrect. Even if it was her Christian values and not bigotry that brought her this conclusion (and if there is a difference) then she is still a hypocrite.

She claims to love the sinner, but hate the sin, and is against gay bashing. However, only a few verses after the one about homosexuality being an abomonation is another saying that homosexuals should be killed. If she is inconsistant in her beliefs doesn't this suggest she is nothing more than a bigot?

Graham:

I read the Malachi article last Friday but thought that he was being too clever by half. I don't think that Iris Robinson was acting sinisterly as a cover for Sammy Wilson at all. Sammy can take care of himself.

Also, Malachi refers to a 'daft and dated debate' in the media about homosexuality, while also pointing out that many MLAs would agree with her. The implication here seems to be: ignore the issue and the fact that many of our MLAs are bigoted creationists because we've known it for ages and there's nothing we can do about it, except vote them out next time, which of course the majority won't do.

The bigotry and prejudice of fundamentalist Christions is shown by the fact that they only like to practice and preach against certain things they don't like: How many of them refuse to wear clothes made of mixed fabrics, for example? But this is condemned in the bible just as much as homosexuality. So they are hypocrites as well.

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