Letter to Scotish Parliament Justice Committee on "Hate Crime and Order Bill"

Email to: Scotish Parliament Justice Committee
Subject: The Scottish government's "Hate Crime and Order Bill" , an objection
Sent 22 Jul 2020, 20:36

Dear sir or madam,

I write to you as a UK citizen with family members who live in Scotland.

Perhaps just a couple of decades ago, the prevailing orthodoxy pretty much regarded the idea of gay marriage as 'grossly offensive'. Can you imagine if we had all been threatened with imprisonment for expressing the idea of gay marriage at that time? The idea would have been suppressed and a civilisation living in fear of speaking out would have stagnated. Thankfully we were not, because of the liberal principle of freedom of speech as worked out in the Enlightenment by philosophical luminaries like John Locke and John Stuart-Mill. Consequently, the exchange of communications of what the then cultural and political orthodoxy would have regarded as controversial has enabled us as a civilisation to understand the merit of the idea, and the injustice of opposing it. Concurrently, and very importantly, bad ideas have been dismantled in the same, necessary light of public scrutiny.