Ethics

This is Not Progress

By Ed Brayton

A Canadian newspaper reports:

The Dutch cabinet gave the nod Friday to a bid to scrap a legal ban on blasphemy, opting to expand hate speech beyond religious boundaries to include all groups of people.

"The cabinet gives the prohibition of blasphemy a new form and place in the law," said a statement from the justice ministry.

"In future, it will be punishable to give serious offence to any group of people. There is no need any more for a separate provision for blasphemy."

A giant step sideways from one freedom-destroying law to another. No one has a right not to be offended by the views of others. Period.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 10, 2008 (boomark / email).