I reported Police Scotland’s hate crime a week ago.
This post brings you up-to-date with the correspondence I’ve had with the police since reporting the hate crime.
The hate crime I reported was the display of this poster :-
which says …
Dear BIGOTS,
you can’t spread your religious hate here. End of sermon.
Yours, SCOTLAND
Hate crime. Report it to stop it.
The police’s first response to my hate crime report was as follows:
Subject: Scottish Government hate crime awareness campaign [OFFICIAL] Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2018 14:39:45 +0000 From: SCD DIVERSITYUNIT <DiversityUnit@scotland.pnn.police.uk> To: John_W_Allman@hotmail.com <John_W_Allman@hotmail.com>
OFFICIAL
Good afternoon,
Thank you for your correspondence dated 4th October 2018, regarding the current Scottish Government hate crime awareness campaign.
The campaign, ‘Hate has no home in Scotland’ was launched by the Scottish Government on 24 September 2018 and is scheduled to continue until the end of October 2018. The campaign aims to encourage those who have been victims or witnesses of hate crimes, to speak out and report it.
Hate crime is a priority for Police Scotland and we recognise the personal impact it can have on individuals, their families and the wider community. We are aware however that such incidents are often under-reported and we continue to work with key stakeholders and partners to raise awareness and improve public confidence to report. As such, Police Scotland supports the ongoing Scottish Government campaign.
The concerns highlighted in your correspondence regarding the campaign material are acknowledged and we will ensure that the Connected Communities Unit within the Scottish Government are informed of your comments. None of your personal details will be passed to the Scottish Government, therefore should you require any further information or wish to raise the matter directly, please make contact by emailing, One_Scotland_Mailbox@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
I responded immediately:
I reported a crime, rather than “highlighting concerns”, whatever that means. What happens next? I’d like at least to know that the crime I witnessed, and the crime against me, are not going to be no-crimed, and that they will be reflected in the crime statistics. How do the police usually deal with deadly serious reports of actual crimes that are committed by the police themselves? Do you need me also to make a complaint separately, or is that implicit in a report of a hate crime committed by the police force itself?
I am deadly serious about this. Please do not try to fob me off. The logo of Police Scotland is on the poster that incited hatred of religious people in general, and caused me distress, to feel threatened and intimidated and alarmed, just seeing an image of the offending poster on the internet. The past week’s news ought to have educated the world of the need to believe victims.
Police Scotland next wrote:
Subject: Scottish Government Hate Crime Awareness Campaign [OFFICIAL] Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2018 15:23:37 +0000 From: SCD DIVERSITYUNIT <DiversityUnit@scotland.pnn.police.uk> To: John_W_Allman@hotmail.com <John_W_Allman@hotmail.com>
OFFICIAL
Good afternoon,
I write with reference to your initial correspondence dated 4th October 2018 and subsequent email dated 7th October 2018, regarding the current Scottish Government hate crime awareness campaign.
I thank you for your comments on this subject and re-iterate that the aim of the campaign material was, and continues to be, to raise awareness of hate crime and encourage reporting.
The creative concept documents a series of letters addressed to perpetrators of hate crime and describes the experience of victims, stating that ‘your hate has no home here’. The letters are signed ‘Yours, Scotland’, to encourage those who read it to report hate crime if they witness it, thereby helping to create better community cohesion.
The creative concept and stakeholder engagement in respect of it was delivered and conducted by Scottish Government. We consider it relevant therefore to inform them of any feedback or concerns we receive, in order to contribute to both the overall evaluation and the planning of any future campaigns. The Scottish Government email address has been provided, to encourage any views to be raised directly with them.
One_Scotland_Mailbox@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
As you may be aware, the following definitions are used by Police Scotland in relation to hate crimes and incidents.
- A hate crime is any crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group.
- A hate incident is any incident which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group but which does not constitute a criminal offence (non-crime incident).
Police Scotland has assessed the circumstances you raise. The motivation of the Scottish Government campaign is not based on malice or ill will towards any social group, therefore the circumstances will not be recorded as hate related. Details of your correspondence however have been recorded and the content passed to Scottish Government, Connected Communities Unit.
No further action will be taken in respect of this matter.
John McKenzie
Chief Superintendent
Safer Communities
I replied to that straight away:
Subject: Re: Scottish Government Hate Crime Awareness Campaign [OFFICIAL] Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2018 20:11:01 +0100 From: John Allman <John_W_Allman@hotmail.com> To: SCD DIVERSITYUNIT <DiversityUnit@scotland.pnn.police.uk>
Dear Chief Superintendent McKenzie
You have told me that a hate crime and a hate incident alike are defined in part by the presence of the fact that the crime or incident is “perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group”.
I have already made it clear that I perceive the poster about which I complained as being motivated at least in part by malice and ill-will towards a social group to which I belong, namely people who are religious. The incident or crime consisting of the display of the hateful poster therefore meets the said criterion. I have told you that I believe it to be hate crime, rather than a mere hate incident, because it incites hatred of religious people as well as being perceived by religious people to be motivated by malice and ill-will towards us as a social group.
You have claimed that the motivation of the Scottish Government campaign is not based on malice or ill-will. I am glad to hear that. However, that is not the correct test, in order to inform your decisions. The correct test is, as you have told me, motivation as perceived by the victim or any other person, not as claimed by the offender.
You have communicated to me a decision that, “the circumstances will not be recorded as hate-related” and that “No further action will be taken” in response to my reports of the hate crime or (at least) hate incident. (The “NFA decision”.)
I am offering you the opportunity to give me a better-advised response, before I escalate this matter to the stage of doing one or more of the following, or otherwise, after taking legal advice:
1) making a complaint to the police about the display of the poster, and another about the handling of my report of this poster’s display as a hate crime
2) sending you a formal Letter Before Action pursuant to the Pre-action Protocol for Judicial Review (judicial review of your NFA decision, that is)
3) absent an assurance that the offending poster will no longer be displayed, seeking an injunction under the Protection From Harassment Act, compelling the police to stop displaying the poster, and possible seeking damages.
Please take this correspondence seriously. It would be wrong of you to incur the cost to the public of litigation if the dispute between us can be settled amicably by negotiation. I am not attacking you. The police attacked us, who are people of religion. I am merely defending myself, and the social group to which I belong.
Yours sincerely,
John Allman
JohnAllman.UK
[Edited] I have, since publishing this page, received a holding response:
Subject: RE: Scottish Government Hate Crime Awareness Campaign [OFFICIAL] Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2018 13:43:07 +0000 From: SCD DIVERSITYUNIT <DiversityUnit@scotland.pnn.police.uk> To: John Allman <John_W_Allman@hotmail.com>
OFFICIAL
I acknowledge receipt of your e-mail dated 11th October 2018 on behalf of Chief Superintendent McKenzie. Further correspondence will be forthcoming.
As President Donald Trump might say, let’s see what happens.
Whilst we’re waiting to see what happens, please read my full hate crime report, and please comment on it. Please consider making a hate crime report yourself,. Be sure to save a copy of your hate crime report before your press “submit”. Full instructions here:
Please follow this blog to receive an email notification whenever more news is published about this or anything else. I recommend the following posts on The Wee Flea.
The ‘Hate’ Police are Now Here
Police Scotland and the Scottish Government Reported for Hate Incident
Cet animal est très méchant. Quand on l’attaque, il se défend.
JohnAllman.UK 
You don’t even live in Scotland.
No, I don’t. But I witnessed a hate crime, and was a victim of it.
Good for you John! We have the right to be religious bigots without anyone criticising us and causing us alarm.
Another pointless JR! You know all about Scots law as well, I assume.
No. How would advise me to challenge the Chief Inspector’s refusal to accept my report of a hate crime or incident? I’d like to do something about it. Any suggestions? You seem quite an expert on the law yourself.
Bigots do spread religious hate.
Do you agree that’s how religion should be used?
Do you approve of hate being spread in the name of religion?
Do you class yourself as a bigot?
The dictionary defines a “bigot” as “a person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions”. If you read some of the comments on this blog you will discover that I have often published the comments of those who have different opinions from mine. So, I don’t class myself as a bigot.
Colloquially, the word “bigot” has become a term of abuse for Christian people, like using the N word to refer to black people.
I am not sure what you mean by “hate being spread”. Could you please clarify that, so that I can interpret your questions?
I do not approve of the police inciting hatred of religious people, as in the poster of theirs that I reported as a hate crime. The police are busted as far as I am concerned, caught red-handed committing a hate crime. They’ve put their name to a vile poster that serves no purpose at all, as far as I can see, except to express and to incite hatred of reliious people. If you don’t realise that yet, read it again.
Dear Bigots (it makes it clear from the offset who the poster is aimed at, if you take offense at anything beyond this then you have to question your position).
You (that’s bigots and not all Christians or people of religion) can’t spread your religious hate here (again, this is clearly from the opening word aimed specifically at bigots, who can’t use their religious hate in Scotland, it’s not wanted or welcome – if you think hatred should be spread via religion you again need to question yourself and not others)
End of sermon (sermons aren’t exclusively linked with religion or the church, they are about morals and can be given by anyone)
You taking offense at a piece of writing doesn’t constitute a crime and rightly so, Police Scotland have not recorded it.
You claim that their is a link between the use of bigot, which you somehow have linked to all Christians (I’m sure you can back up this assertion?) and the n word, is not only utterly mind boggling, but also breathtaking naive.
No conflation can be made between the two words and if you think there can, again it’s yourself and not others you need to take a closer look at.
I’ve published your comment as an example of the feeble faith-hate apologetics one sometimes comes across. Hate apologists lack insight, and so often come across to themselves as trying to be reassuring to the intimidated victims of haters, by explaining in patronising and pedantic tones how stupid the victims must be to have taken offence at mere jokes, or “banter” as it is usually called by hate apologists. But to the targeted ethnicities and social groups called names and falsely accused of stereotyped wrongdoing by the haters, hate apologists like you only increase the victims’ sense of insecurity. Even if you claim to have “many religious friends”, we still won’t want to bump into anybody as belligerent towards us as you are, in a dark alley at night.
The poster refers to religious people insultingly as “bigots”, a cliche I come across constantly, and to our religious beliefs as our “hate”. (I’ve come across that sort of hate speech against religious people very often before online, several times every week, but never seen it on a police poster like this, anywhere in the world.) The poster threatens to make the whole of Scotland unsafe for religious people, a place they might wish to consider leaving for their own safety unless they want to suffer police-orchestrated daily persecution. Unless, that is, they are willing to keep their mouths shut, to stay in the closet, never trying to “spread” their beliefs (i.e. their so-called “hate”) to others (in other words merely coming out as religious, hoping to be accepted for who they are). In what other way is it possible to decode this otherwise almost meaningless poster?
In any event, the police’s own definition of a hate crime and a hate incident is based upon the perception of the victims and/or others, not the proclamation of the hater that he was only joking, or meant to target with his hate only some religious people (mainly those who try to “spread” their “hate”), not all religious people. The reason we have that victim perception-based definition of a hate crime or incident is that there will always be hate apologists like you, themselves motivated by malice or ill-will, who can be relied upon (like the Chief Superintendent) to add insult to injury, by telling the victims that they ought to learn to take a joke, or not to be so paranoid, when they feel threatened by (let’s face it) unmistakeable threats.
“The poster refers to religious people insultingly as “bigots”, a cliche I come across constantly, and to our religious beliefs as our “hate”.”
Nope, the poster refers to bigots as bigots.
You concluding that this is directed to all religious people is a link you’ve formed in your own head and has absolutely nothing to do with what’s written.
The poster isn’t banter or a joke, it’s a serious issue relating specifically to bigots using religion for the purpose of hate towards others.
This position appears to be what some think they are entitled to –
“Alan on Thursday 11th October 2018 at 22:24
Good for you John! We have the right to be religious bigots without anyone criticising us and causing us alarm.”
Alan’s comments perfectly encapsulates the issue that the poster is raising.
Only a bigot would be harassed, alarmed or distressed by this poster.
Can you give me an example of what you mean by a “bigot”? That is if you really think the word isn’t being used in the poster against religious people in the exactly the same way as the N word is often used against black people?
I’ve never heard anybody use the word “bigot” except as an insult directed at somebody whom the speaker despises because of his beliefs. Almost always, the target of the abusive word “bigot” is a Christian in my experience. (I sometimes feel like calling myself a “bigot” amongst my own faith community in the same way that African Americans call themselves and each other by the N word, even though it would be racist for a white man to join in that. I suspect that that is what Alan is doing.) I therefore perceive the police’s motive in publishing the hate poster to have been malice and ill-will towards religious people. If it wasn’t that, then I don’t see how you can possibly deny that at very least the hate poster was motivated by malice and ill-will towards those whom the police consider to be “bigots”, whatever that is supposed to mean, either in your mind or in the mind of the police. (The poster doesn’t give any sort of clue, other than the use of the words “spreading”, “hate” and “religious”. Not much to go on.)
Apart from making me, and many other religious people, nervous of the police, what possible useful purpose do you think the hate poster serves? What in practice might go wrong, for example because it has gone wrong in the past, if the police were not to crack the whip now at religious “bigots” (as they call us) in this manner?
Scotland has huge problems with religious bigotry, by which I don’t mean people like you who like to complain about homosexuals and trans people (whose feelings I note from your various blog posts you don’t think worthy of the same protection you want for yourself). I mean sectarians. The abuse hurled at the likes of Celtic/Rangers matches has long been a stain on Scotland’s breast. That’s the kind of bigotry (and it is bigotry) Police Scotland is rightly looking to stamp out. It has nothing to do with the sensitivities of some Englishman who wants to go around talking about a gay cure or is frightened that he might accidentally sleep with a man.
That is a very fair comment. Thank you for it.
If only the police’s manner of response to the complaints (possibly hundreds I am told) against that hate poster were are reasoned as yours, I would probably not be on a collision course with them. There is still plenty of opportunity for the police to climb down, over that one particular poster.
I did hear recently of a Scots true horror story about somebody in the vicinity of an Orange march, but not part of it, taking a swipe at a Roman Catholic priest also on the route, right outside his church door. Fortunately, this terrible deed of violence seems to have forged a greater friendship between the lodge and Rome in that town, reportedly.
At the moment, the police are sticking to their guns, stonewalling us all, and manipulating the statistics by excluding the reports of that hate-crime poster from their statistics, even though there have been a lot of complaints. possibly more about that poster than all the other hate crime reports put together.
If nothing else, the home goal the police scored, with that poster, has its humorous side.
Well done!
unless people are racist, homophobic or transphobic how are they offended by this campaign?
I have reported a hate crime that consists of the display of one particular hate poster, not any “campaign” as a whole that this one hate crime may be part of. If a police officer shouts a racial slur at me, it is no consolation to know that he is scrupulously fair, in shouting racial slurs at everybody, adjusting the slur for the race of his present victim. Likewise, it is no excuse that an offensive poster was part of a general campaign of offensiveness which, on balance isn’t offensive, when looked at as a whole, on average, because it offends everybody equally, on both sides of every divide.
That hate poster I reported does not mention homophobia or transphobia, or racism, so it is not motivated by malice and ill-will towards any of these three social groups. For the same reason, it doesn’t harass, offend, alarm, or distress members of these social groups. Thirdly, it does not incite hatred of these social groups. So why your question?
The poster I reported as a hate crime appears only to be targeted at the social group with which I identify most closely, religious people. I have gone to considerable trouble to explain why it offends me (etc) and why I believe it incites hatred of my social group. The police are intending to no-crime the incident and to take no further action. That isn’t good enough.
As it happens, I do not think that the police should be motivated by malice or ill-will to any social groups. Racists no exception, even though I am not a racist myself.
As it happens, I am inclined towards homophobia, though not in an illegal or hateful way. I jolly-well deserve to be better known than I am, as the self-evidently transphobic person who once sought judicial review of The Gender Recognition Act, before the word “transphobia” was in popular currency.
I have grown resigned to my fate of being hated for being homophobic and transphobic, by holier-than-thou types who think themselves morally superior to me, because they don’t share my dislike of sodomy and downright terror at the thought of gender fraud. I can win hands down a debate with anybody as to why transgenderism is something to be feared, not celebrated, or at very least why that is not a debate in which the police should be taking sides either.
Suffice it to say, as a matter of principle, I don’t think the state and the police have any business hating any social grouping, not even one that believes that the enactment of the Gender Recognition Act was a dangerous thing to do, which will end in tears, and would love to see transgenderism criminalised. I consider that a rational and compassionate opinion, not in the least hateful to anybody.
Your first paragraph makes no sense in the slighest and is irrelevant and whataboutery. The poster is only offensive if you use religion for hate which would go against everything religion is supposed to stand for, love, compassion and acceptance etc. There is a huge majority of religious people this does not and never will apply to, so unless this describes you why be professionaly outraged?
As I said its part of a campaign, and again unless you’re racist, homophobic or transphobic how are you offended by this campaign?
The poster is regarding people who use religion for hate, not every religious person. This is a simple to understand, not every religious person is a bigot and at no point does that poster say this. If you align yourself with bigoted views then yes, this makes you one John. To fully expand the dictionary definition of bigot (you seem to have cut it short) it is:
“one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance”. So you then.
Which brings us neatly to your comments about being homophobic and transphobic (although not homophobic in an illegal way… lol).Why do you feel the need to be famous for being a transphobic bigot? Seems to me you’re just an attention seeker. (“I jolly-well deserve to be better known than I am, as the self-evidently transphobic person who once sought judicial review of The Gender Recognition Act”) Arrogant and full of self importance much? You didnt manage to hands down win a debate with the courts over your transphobic views did you?
Why are you filled with terror about transgender people? Do you think they all fancy you or something?
I think it would be better if we talked about issues rather than about personalities.
Secondly, if we are going to talk about personalities rather than issues, then I’d rather you stuck to telling me about your own personality, and let me tell you about my personality if I want to, rather than our having to make guesses about each other, when we’ve never met, in order (for example) for you to explain to me what I’m like (but never realised I was like, until you, a stranger, kindly explained to me online what I was like, having read a few words of mine).
If you don’t understand something, it’s more polite to ask for a better explanation than it is to accuse somebody of making “no sense in the slightest”.
I have never said I felt a need to be famous for being any kind of bigot.
And I’ve never debated transsexuality in court.
If you want to talk about LGBT issues with me, then please do so in response to one of my several blog posts under category “homophobic”.
https://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/category/homophobic/
Let’s stick to the topic of Police Scotland hate crime on this page. The exception to this, is if you want to explain why an incident isn’t a hate incident for police purposes (if that is what you think) when it is perceived by homophobic or transphobic people to be motivated by malice or ill-will towards their own social group.
I have decided not to publish comments for the time being in which the writers do not restrain their impulses to express hostility towards me or anybody else for that matter. I think there are some important issues to discuss. I don’t want flame wars here. I don’t want stress. I wish this to a safe place for discussing ideas that it might not be safe to discuss elsewhere. Do you think you can manage to comply with that “no ad hominem” rule?
“Why are you filled with terror about transgender people?”
I don’t remember using that particular hyperbole. If you wish to talk about transphobia, and whether it is wise and good or foolish and bad, and why, then I recommend “Should a bloke be allowed to know if his ‘girlfriend’ (or ‘bride’) is also a bloke?”, on this blog. That page is crying out for that discussion.
If you dislike sodomy there’s an easy solution. Don’t do it. It’s not compulsory. Or maybe your dislike of it affects how you think people who do like it should be treated. Maybe you don’t think they deserve the same rights and respect you do. You certainly don’t seem bothered about offending them. That latter point wouldn’t matter how if you believed that everyone can say what they liked and no one has the right not to be offended. But you don’t. Your latest escapade showns you actually think Christians do deserve protection. We’re not to call them “bigots” for example. You claim to be feeling “alarmed” by that poster. Well, how do you think a gay or trans person would feel on reading your blog posts about them?
Why are you mentioning “sodomy”???
Maybe you should stick to telling me what you think and feel, instead of guessing and telling me what I think and feel.
Maybe you should comment on-topic too. If you read something on a blog post of mine you want to comment on (e.g. in category “homophobic”, by the looks of your off-topic comment), please comment there and then, in that context, about what I’ve said, rather than about what you guess I think and feel and why you guess I think and feel that and what you think I ought to do about it. Don’t let it all out here, especially showing such shallow understanding of my writing, in which I set out to offend nobody. If you go off on a tangent like this, you distract from the topic of this post.
To remind you, this post has nothing to with “sodomy”. You have raised that red herring. The topic of this post is the police’s abysmal, evasive and insulting response to hate crime/incident reports about that poster, which precisely meets the definition of a hate/crime incident that the police themselves are quoting, in their stage two fob-off standard email response that hate-crime reporters galore are receiving, if they persist long enough in the police’s stonewalling. Since making this post, I have discovered that the police are using identical wording for multiple victims of their hate crime. There is clearly a fixed and stubborn intention not to take the crime reports they are receiving seriously. This has to be challenged.
There is a world of difference between a private citizen expressing his tastes, hopes, fears, policy suggestions, opinions and value judgments, and the police targeting a specific social group as they do in that poster, with no real content, just verbal abuse, as in the hate poster many people apart from me have reported as a hate crime or incident. Nothing I have written on the internet is on a par with what the police has done, and you know it.
Other posters are not quite as bad as the anti-religion one that is being reported as a hate crime by many people, because the other posters typically do give examples that clarify what sort of behaviour it is that the police are trying to discourage. In contrast, the shorter anti-religion poster is just anti-religion, nothing else. No examples. No clarity. Pure hate.
“Well, how do you think a gay or trans person would feel on reading your blog posts about them?”
This blog post has nothing to do with gay or trans people. Which of my blog posts do you consider is about gay or trans people, that you disagree with? Feel free to comment on any of those blog posts and (if you crave the attention) to post brief comments here just saying that you have commented there, with the names of the blog posts on which you have commented, about those posts’ topics. Unless you stick to that, you are just using innuendo, in order to insinuate to a reader here, that there is something less-than-nice posted elsewhere on this blog. There isn’t. I can defend every word I have written, in the right place, in context.
None of that has anything to do with the police letting rip against religious people, in that totally unacceptable hate poster. You are trying to muddy the waters.
Don’t try to pretend your writing is better than it is, John. It’s pretty unpleasant stuff. It’s right on point to call you out now for special pleading for Christianity (which always seems to relate to homosexuality for some reason) to be immune from criticism. If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.
There is no “special pleading for Christianity” in my hate crime report, my email correspondence with the police, or anywhere on my blog.
My hate crime report, the email correspondence, and the two blog posts (including this one) do not “relate to homosexuality” at all. That’s your red herring.
I do not claim immunity from criticism. I have simply asked you please to criticise me for what I actually say and do, not because what you guess I think or feel etc, and secondly to criticise me in the right context. I have actually written quite a few blog posts that are related to homosexuality. You can be as critical as you like of me, mentioning homosexuality, on any of those. What I am not willing to tolerate, is you criticising me because of your guesses rather than facts, mentioning homosexuality, on this page, when my hate crime report and this blog post have nothing to do with homosexuality, or my personality or your guesses about that, or your opinion of my writing talent or lack of it for that matter.
This said, I’d prefer everybody here to discuss ideas, rather than to criticise anybody. But I appreciate that emotions sometimes run high.
Please don’t bother replying, if you cannot stick to these simple rules. I’ve already given you as much leeway as I’m going to.
What does your report have to do with then? There’s nothing on the poster that says Christians are bigots or that those terms are interchangeable. It’s interesting you and others who seem unheathily obsessed with homosexuality assume without any factual basis that it’s “Christians” who are under attack.
The text of my hate crime report is published on an earlier blog post, here:
If you read that, you would not need to ask me what the report had to do with. You would know that I identified the poster as a hate crime because it incited hatred of religious people in general, including Christians, not specifically of Christians as you seem to imagine (probably never having even read the hate crime report yourself, judging by your ill-informed comments about it.)
Your the one who seems to be “unhealthily obsessed with homosexuality”. You keep trying to drag the conversation off-topic, onto that topic. I’ve been asking you to stop ever since you started. I am not making any point at all about homosexuality in the present context.
I suggest you visit the post in which I publish my hate crime report, which most certainly doesn’t mention homosexuality, read the complaint (so you know what it is about) and post a comment there, if you wish. Don’t mention homosexuality again. My reason for reporting the hate poster has nothing to do with homosexuality.
I’ll repeat: there is nothing on the poster that says Christians are bigots. I have read your complaint, so don’t patronise me.
The poster uses the word “bigots” to refer to people who “spread” their “religious” “hate”, using the word “sermon” to drive home the point home who it is aimed at.
Sermons are not unique to Christians, and nor is spreading religious hate. You’re taking offence for the sake of it to make a point that you’re being persecuted in some way.
No. The hate poster isn’t necessarily aimed specifically at Christians. It is worded so as to be targeted at all religious people. (I thought we’d covered that.)
Correct, so it’s not a hate crime then, is it? “Religious people” in general aren’t a protected group. Each individual faith might be, but following a religion alone isn’t covered.
On what do you base that assertion?
The Law. I guess you wouldn’t have studied this stuff in 1995.
I think you need to cite more specific authority for your assertion of law, that (as you put it), ” ‘Religious people’ in general aren’t a protected group. Each individual faith might be, but following a religion alone isn’t covered.”
The police have given (to all and sundry hate-crime reporters, in standard police fob-off email 2) a definition of a hate crime or hate (non-crime) incident that refers to a “social group”. I think religious people are a social group, don’t you?
Part 3A, i.e. sections 29A thru 29N, of the Public Order Act 1986, weren’t added until the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2007, twelve years after I took my CPE in 1995, so of course I didn’t study this stuff in 1995. It wasn’t enacted back then. (I do ad hoc Continuing Amateur Development though.) The words of the statute itself don’t seem to me to support your opinion that incitement to hatred of religious people in general isn’t an offence. Had you a case law authority for that opinion of yours?
If only the police had replied to me in the dedicated and detailed way you have! (Except, that is, when you’ve lapsed into insulting me personally, or trying to change the subject to your own pet subject, LGBT, which has wasted a lot of time and webspace.) How much better that would have been, than their trying to fob me off, and God knows how many other people who have reported their religious hate poster as a hate crime or incident, with their standard fob-off emails 1 and 2, as published here.
Smithy has offered a comment, which I have not published, in which he claims that it wasn’t Ruth who first raised LGBT on this page, as I’d thought. He said it was me. I have checked. It was actually Frankie who first raised LGBT topics, at Friday 12th October 2018 at 16:59. I replied to his comment, saying first of all that homophobia and transphobia were not relevant considerations here. Ruth did not raise LGBT topics on this page until about 20 minutes after Frankie, at Friday 12th October 2018 at 17:19.
To the extent that I have mentioned LGBT topics myself, it has always been in response to other people introducing those topics here first.
Ruth has at last stopped going on about LGBT topics herself, which are not topics relevant to my hate crime reports of the anti-religious people hate poster. I thought it best to not publish Smithy’s inaccurate comment that nevertheless prompted me to check who initiated this whole LGBT distraction tactic. I have emailed his unpublished comment back to him, for him to salvage any content he wants to use in a different comment.
I am happy to discuss here the police response to the hate crime reports, which is the topic of this post. I am not happy to publish any further comments here about LGBT topics on this page. There are plenty of other posts on this blog on which it would be appropriate to comment about LGBT topics. I am disappointed with myself that I allowed LGBT red herrings to dominate the discussion here for so long.
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