Who defines what is a bigoted statement and what is a perfectly correct statement ? One person's 'reasonable statement' can be, to another person, 'bigoted'.

Who defines 'offense' ? I recall arguing with an Aboriginal student who, since I disagreed with him, called me a racist. As it happens, I found that assertion offensive. And bigoted. But it didn't occur to me to take him to court.

How would the law stop someone making bigoted statements, even if God or David Marr or some other supreme being proclaimed what was, and what wasn't, bigoted ? Let alone stopping people THINKING bigoted thoughts ?

Joe

I would much prefer Senator Brandis form of 'bigotry' than the nasty dogmatic opposers to free speach that often masquerade as self righteous warriors on the ABC. They are more narrow minded than the 'bigots' they pretend to protect us from.

This thing only made the public headlines that it did, because we have no actual bill of actual rights, which need to include the right to offend or be offended.
[One man's meat is another mans poison, and racism could be just as offensive or worse, in reverse!
Perhaps we need look no further than the nearest mirror, to find the worst example?]
At the end of the day, surely the Good senator, from the red necked North, was protected by parliamentary privilege?
Shakespeare, would have probably said something along the lines, much ado about naught?
Rhrosty.

A free on-line dictionary defines a bigot as "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ."
Bigot is an ugly word, and it implies intolerance, but it has no legal legs. It might grow some legs if woven into a political slogan, but that could easily backfire.
It looks to me like there's little more than political point-scoring going on here, a semantic bunfight, a tempest in a tea cup.

halduell do the ABC, or the left ever do anything else?

One of their big mistakes is that they often alienate the very people that wish to impress & win, with all their self congratulation for their snide character assignation attempts.

Hi Hal,

Of course people shouldn't be bigots. But how do you define one, and somehow make it illegal to be one ? So, by default, they exist, and quite legally.

To that definition, "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ", one could add: "one who continues to assert a point of view with little or no evidence for it." Prejudiced, if you like, or someone who not only 'pre-judges' but ignores what may count as evidence.

For example, suppose I came to the conclusion that there was no such phenomenon as a "Stolen Generation", on the basis of reading thousands of pages of material from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Protector's letters, missionary's journal, mission letters, school records, genealogies, etc. If someone declared that there was indeed a "Stolen Generation", but could provide no conclusive evidence, then who is bigoted ?

As it happens .....

Joe