Unfortunately, many liberals and atheists campaigned against religious hatred legislation on the basis that it protected religious people but not atheists – us! – from ridicule.
And so the final law also outlaws ‘stirring up hatred’ against people on the basis of their ‘lack of religious belief’. This is a travesty, not only because I am most inclined today to stir up hatred (well, to really, really ridicule) New Atheists, with their illiberal, intolerant, screechy streak, but also because it misses the main point: that the authorities have no business policing and punishing our hatred of anything.
So long as we don’t physically attack someone or something, we should be free to hate it as much as we like and to tell people that we hate it.
