Scotland’s Hate Crime Bill is a charter for the suppression of free speech christiantoday.com

There are laws on the statute books which are largely redundant because they have not been used or implemented. The Scottish blasphemy law is one such. The last time it was used was 178 years ago, when Edinburgh bookseller, Thomas Paterson, was prosecuted for advertising: ‘that the Bible and other obscene works not sold at this shop.’

In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, the Scottish Government has delayed its proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act, but has still found time to seek to repeal the blasphemy law. But the proposed Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) bill is in effect going to create a new secular blasphemy law – one which will be far more encompassing than its predecessor, and one that will have the crucial difference of actually being used…

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