Bill Muehlenberg and Helen Pringle both with the same article - just different words.

Which to post to?

This is an important topic - (unlike economics - which are simply unproven opinions dressed up as fact) so I will post to both !

Freedom of speech and expression is a "fundamental" right.

Challenging it is like breaching the levy which used to surround New Orleans - once breached the barriers are eroded and the forces of oppression flood down upon us (darn it I am getting too lyrical for my own good). Antivilification legislation is the attempt by the manipulative and powerful to suppress the individual and impose the prescribed view by intimidation.

I note the political party which enacted this legislation in Victoria were the Scoialists!

They forever fiddle with individual rights of property, achievement and now expression.

When the smart outnumber the dross and the Spring St returns to liberal government we will, hopefully, have this cheap and manipulative legislation (the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001) rescinded and assigned to the garbage truck of ignominy where it rightly deserves to reside.

So, what laws should exist to protect the rights of powerless minority ethnic or racial groups? I belong to a "powerless" minority group in this country and we certainly don't have the power to impose or suppress anyone’s views about us and perhaps never will.

I find it ironic that those who think there freedom of speech is under attack are by far the first, loudest (and many times only) voices you hear in public debate about vilification laws.

I too deplore totalitarian impositions, but I also look at how balance is made possible in public debates. Hence my previous post questioning those against vilification laws to critically examine how public debate is rolled out in the national media.

From my perspective it’s far from balanced and this is much more a problem that what anyone is saying about this group or that.

The other reality is that vilification is also played out in violent attacks, abuse and other anti-democratic, anti liberal behavior.

Yes, freedom of speech should be protected but when its linked to a freedom to be violent; freedom to vilify anyone on the basis of their racial, ethic or religious backgrounds, its not freedom anymore, its hate. I’m sure many professing to protect freedom of speech here would not support violence, but they don’t seem to understand the differences between balanced and good public debate and when its becomes vilification that incites violence. History tells us that they are intimately related to each other.

From my personal experience of being publicly vilified, racially taunted and violently attacked I’d like to think there are laws that would protect me. Apparently lots of people here don’t think these laws should exist at all. And they call this freedom of speech?

Whose freedom and whose speech is being protected here?

Naybe a naive comment but can't even see the need for vilification laws in a modern society.

Should we be able to state our opinions maturally with putting down others?

Should we be, in a first world country and the year 2005, still legislating for how adult australians interact with people of different race, religions, hobbies, interests? Isn't that a basic education on living in a multiculture society?

I think it is much simpler if everyone uses a decent format like: in my belief is.., or my truth is... Isn't it taught at schools that you should express yourself without humiliating others?

Food for thought.

Bill - thank you for your article.

Rainier, your comments are very interesting.

Fellow_Human - your last paragraph is spot on.

Cheers
Kay

Ah, so let me get this straight?

If someone has a biological status such as being female or black - then vilification on those grounds is bad. But if someone has a status brought about by "choice", such as religious belief or sexuality - then vilification on these grounds is kinda ok?

Whoa! For starters, no-one "chooses" to be gay/lesbian, it is innate. (I've known I was gay since I was 12). Only right wing Christians argue that sexuality is a "choice", as this is the only way they can justify their ongoing predjudice. "If only they'd stop being gay then they wouldn't suffer our disdain and intolerance," seems to be the perculiar and self-serving argument from them.

Seems to me that the AFA as a right-wing group with its fair share of vehement anti-gay hatred flung about the place, is nervous about being shown up for this. Particulary after it's WA divison was found guilty of vilification by the Advertising Standards Board in 2001, when it errected fear-mongering billboards and distributed hateful leaflets around Perth claiming a link between gay males and child molesters. (This was all in the name of opposing gay and lesbian anti-discrimination and equality laws in the WA parliament at that time).

So, according to Muehlenberg's own argument, hate-speech which declares that Jews or Blacks are more inclined to undermine society, spread disease and molest childen is a genuine reason for anti-vilification laws. But claiming (as the AFA has done repeatedly), that homosexuals are more inclined to undermine society, spread disease and molest children is not.

And why not? Oh, because gay people "choose" their sexuality.

Try again Bill.

Elidor
PERTH

David Palmer writes... "The reason for the different treatment of race and religion is not hard to understand – race for anyone of us is a given whereas religion is a choice"

Race is not a given. It is a social construct, just like religion. In terms of race and "choice", you are only limited by the socially conceived label affixed to you by wider society. Your choice is limited in the sense that the society chooses your race for you, whereas religion is widely conceived as being about individual choice.