[gjsman-1000]

"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."

[benj111]

>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.

[the_third_wave]

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.

[Dylan16807]

> 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.

[benj111]

Protected category in your location.

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.