"always ignore the fact that speech inciting violence can have a material impact on the world"
Not as much as you think. In the US (I know that this story is about the UK but bear with me), speech inciting violence can be charged criminally already, as you can see by the investigations into the former president over whether he incited violence with his Jan 6 remarks. Whether I agree with that is irrelevant, I'm making the point that remarks inciting violence aren't 1st Amendment protected.
The second problem is that Hate Speech regulation is, actually, being used against religious people in the countries with Hate Speech laws. In Finland, there was a criminal prosecution for a pastor who quoted the Bible that Men-who-have-sex-with-men is "abominable" even though none of the violent passages were mentioned, nor did the pastor have any violent comments regarding the quote. This was openly admitted by the prosecution, who said the charge was not that it was violent, but that it was "hateful."
>The second problem is that Hate Speech regulation is, actually, being used against religious people.
Why is that a problem? Why should it be any better if you quote hate speech from the Bible rather than mein kampf?
Further, you say it was quoted without the violent passages. But the implication is still there, if you quote the Bible saying gay people are evil, it stands to reason that you also stand by the following passage that they should be stoned to death. So I'm not even sure this is that far from inciting violence anyway.
Because, when you like it or not, religion is a protected category just like sexual orientation is. Members of protected categories are allowed freedoms which are not allowed outside those categories, one of these being the citation of scripture. Rest assured that there are plenty of people who think the same about the displays of obscenity which pride parades have turned into but since these are also part of a protected category they can't do anything about it either.
The solution to these problems is to do away with protected categories altogether and just apply the law to all in an equal fashion - I'm all for it.
> Members of protected categories are allowed freedoms which are not allowed outside those categories
That's not really how it works in the US. Except for age, every protected category applies to everyone. Even if your answer is "none", that's protected as much as any other answer.
Plus I still don't see the problem. Surely protected categories are there to protect people, not give them cover to do otherwise illegal things.
People can discuss mein kampf without getting to hate speech, the same should be true of a religious text. And if that is impossible maybe that religion shouldn't have special protections.
> This IS violence and it's a way of silencing gay people. Dehumanization is violence. This type of speech is why gay people are marginalized and why they feel the need to keep their sexuality a secret.
I'm against dehumanisation, silencing and marginalisation. I don't agree that speech can be violence.
I think it's important to make this distinction. Do you really want to disslove the distinction between someone beating you up, and someone saying nasty things to you?
Violence is beating you up. Saying nasty things may be bad, but it's not bad because it's violence, whoever you say it to.
It may change someone's logic, but whether the nastiness is addressed to one person or a multitude doesn't change my logic. Verbal "violence" isn't violence.
>Think of it this way. If you're a gay person, and the people around you say that men having sex with men is "abominable," does that make you more or less likely to freely express your sexuality?
>This IS violence and it's a way of silencing gay people. Dehumanization is violence. This type of speech is why gay people are marginalized and why they feel the need to keep their sexuality a secret.
There's a long history in many places of criminalising and discriminating against those who are gay.
That's wrong.
And it's understandable that folks whose liberties have been infringed by such laws and cultural repression would treat their orientation as a political issue and push their elected representatives to support their liberty.
And that's generally a good thing. But legislators have one primary tool -- legislating. Which is why we get laws that criminalise one thing or another, whether that may be appropriate or not.
At the same time, there's an old saw:
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will
never hurt me.
And that's, for the most part (patterns of harassment are a small subset of unpleasant speech and are already criminalised in many places), the truth.
I am a practitioner of BDSM. Which is often demonised as "abuse."
It isn't, of course, as everything I do with a partner is consensual.
I generally don't publicly discuss my sex life, because it's private.
But if I did (as I am now), and you were to say that I'm a "rapist" or an "abuser" or a "criminal" because of my practices, you'd be wrong. But saying such things isn't "violence."
Rather it's just ignorant, unpleasant and busybody[0] behavior.
If we accept your argument, then we'd need to ban any speech that anyone finds objectionable, uncomfortable or unpleasant/nasty.
And if we were to do that, I imagine you'd find yourself sharing a jail cell with the pastor you're deriding for his "violence."
Is that the sort of world in which you want to live? For me, the answer is an emphatic "no."
> does that make you more or less likely to freely express your sexuality?
If the law operates on subjective criteria like this, then literally anything could conceivably be labelled a crime by somebody. Can society function on this standard?
> Free speech doesn't mean you only get to hear what you want to hear.
(I'm assuming you're speaking of US 1st Amendment free speech) I don't think it means anything about what I hear. I choose what I hear: I take in a bit of TV news, and some radio. I follow a few blogs. Nobody is obliged to consume Faceache and Twaddle.
Your question: No, being ostracised isn't violence. Boycotts are not violence. If I prefer not to meet you or deal with you, that isn't violence. Violence would be forcing me to deal with an anti-gay bigot when I don't want to. Does that help?
Not as much as you think. In the US (I know that this story is about the UK but bear with me), speech inciting violence can be charged criminally already, as you can see by the investigations into the former president over whether he incited violence with his Jan 6 remarks. Whether I agree with that is irrelevant, I'm making the point that remarks inciting violence aren't 1st Amendment protected.
The second problem is that Hate Speech regulation is, actually, being used against religious people in the countries with Hate Speech laws. In Finland, there was a criminal prosecution for a pastor who quoted the Bible that Men-who-have-sex-with-men is "abominable" even though none of the violent passages were mentioned, nor did the pastor have any violent comments regarding the quote. This was openly admitted by the prosecution, who said the charge was not that it was violent, but that it was "hateful."