//I cannot claim the Customary Law of my people when appearing before a court of law.//

Yes you can. It's called 'common law' and it's quite important in our legal system.

Dear Foxy,

«Most people in this country have a robust tolerance of difference but to maintain this tolerance [(=?=)] we have to have an agreed framework which will protect the rights and liberties of all.»

That would have been excellent, but we don't have it.
What we have is a forced framework, not an agreed one.

Fortunately, despite your claim, those (which are most) of us who have a robust tolerance of difference, have not lost that tolerance due to this failure to have an agreed framework, which proves that such a framework is not strictly necessary.

Now in parentheses you mentioned: "tolerance (cohesion in our society)".
What has the one got to do with the other? It is quite possible to have tolerance without cohesion as well as cohesion without tolerance. Tolerance is important while cohesion is only one option among many.

«Therefore it is important that people know there are laws that are going to be enforced whether they acknowledge their legitimacy or not.»

Are you referring to people who are already tolerant anyway or to others who are intolerant? The former don't need laws while the latter are not going to become more tolerant due to such laws, only more afraid to act on their intolerance and more careful to not be caught when they do.

No-one, including yourself, is immune from the application of illegitimate laws. Perhaps you have not been much of a victim of such laws so far and I wish you never will, but when others in a majority are able to hit you with their laws, there may always come a time when you too might find yourself in a helpless minority.

Those with a robust tolerance of difference, do not harass those who are different to them, including with their laws.

A very good and well reasoned article, Amanda Stoker. Although it is odd that here in the western world today, we still need to even have discussions defending free speech.

The Grand Mufti's position is pure hypocrisy, given that his predecessor Sheik al Hilali was quoted as saying that Jews were "pigs."

As for the so called "feminist" lobby, which appears to be completely out of step with most women, another contradiction is evident. The feminist movement once sought to overthrow the very real male status quo which discriminated against women. here in Australia, women received lower pay for equal work to men. They could not enter hire purchase agreements without a male "guarantor." In the rural town of Broken Hill the unions decreed that married women were not allowed to work.

The feminist movement has one these battles but in the process has morphed into a totalitarian movement concerned only with complaint and enforcing it's own views upon others. It is in the nature of all organisations that sooner or later the moderates leave and the rabid and extreme take over. The extremists then become a different version of the very authoritarians that they once claimed were evil. The process then repeats itslf, where moderate and intelligent people ned to take on the new authoritarians to reform the original idea.

lastly, I disagree with Amanda that all people are born equal. That is simply a slogan which makes as much sense as 'Jesus died for you."

People are not equal, Amanda. They are not equal in intelligence, physical ability, physical appearance, temperament, or physical beauty. The policy of equality has never worked in any society. In every society, exemptions to equality has always been the rule from both the Left and the Right.

18C is perfectly reasonable as it is. Everyone is entitled not to be insulted in public space when the insults refer to his or her genetic make-up which is predetermined at birth.

Regrettably that Moslem freak who demanded that 18C be extended to religion has his counterpart in the ABC which routinely describes opposition to the march of Islam as racism. This showed in its reporting of events in Bendigo in which people objecting to the placement of a mosque clashed with people defending it. The ABC repeatedly described this as a clash with "anti-racist" demonstrators. It frequently uses the term "racist" in this way.

Choice of language speaks volumes about the ideology being peddled by the speaker. Rightly we offer protection to people's genetic inheritance and this is reflected in 18C, But this must not be allowed to protect from opprobrium voluntary adherents to a cult that hates our guts and wishes us harm.

Dear Julian,

«18C is perfectly reasonable as it is. Everyone is entitled not to be insulted in public space»

Absolutely so - however, 18C wrongly defines and extends "public" as:

«"public place" includes any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, whether express or implied and whether or not a charge is made for admission to the place.»

- One's own business-premises for example, is not public and it should be only up to the owners to define the terms and conditions of entry for their guests. This forum itself is a virtual such place: we are here by invitation from Graham Young and only he should determine the rules here, including for example whether or not we are allowed to insult others on the basis of the colour of their shoes.