Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 - Read OP

I agree with you, but the nudist thing just makes it sooooo much easier.

It's no the bodies that are the issue, it's what people see as an invasion of traditional womens' safe spaces. that's not me being TERF, that's me just highlighing the problem. I don't know what the solution is - uisex doesn't really work, because you've still got the shower areas (which are nearly always gender-segregated).

McEntee stated in her opening remarks that the Bill was being demanded on the back of an EU framework directive.

Back in March last year, in the Dáil for the "Motion on Ireland's opt-in to the EU measure on extending the list of the Eu crimes under Article 83 TFEU to include hate crimes & hate speech", McEntee stated:

I'm trying to figure out if the gov opted us into these laws without having to do so under EU law.

I think read somewhere that Ireland negotiated an opt-out in the areas of freedom, security, and justice under the Amsterdam treaty, in which hate speech and hate crime comes under this. trying to find it, maybe someone else knows.

Ferries dont see furry as a gender though (at least, I don't think so...)

I wasn't sure myself so did a quick Google search and found this.

I'll be honest, most of what's in there is foreign to me and I understand next to nothing about it.

Smart kids, hopefully the teacher gets the boot.

I saw this asinine article on Sunday and a few things about it struck me as just a little bit odd.

1) The author never mentions WHO sent the e-mail. She just says it was received by staff at Mediahuis. Was it sent by company management? By colleagues in an internal company LGBTQI+ mutual support group? By an outside representative body of similar outlook? By an individual hitherto unknown to any staff on the paper? Or was it an anonymous mail from a single person claiming to be concerned about "cultivating an inclusive office environment"?

It's kind of important to state who the sender was, don't you think? After all, it could have been some mischief conjured up by an AI-powered bot claiming to be, say, an Ecuadorian immigrant to Dublin horrified about how attitudes considered mainstream and harmless by most local people are in fact hostile, discriminatory and damaging to recently arrived minorities. It's not like THAT hasn't happened recently!!

2) The quotation she cites from the mail is full of innuendo and empty of any meaning. "We endorse the use of pronouns.." No ****? I hope you also endorse the use of nouns, adjectives, articles (definite and indefinite), prepositions, interrogators and and all the other wondrous grammatical elements that combine to enable mutually intelligible human discourse.

Taking this message of dubious origin containing little if anything of substance, the very silly Ms O'Hanlon immediately infers that there is a mass conspiracy of malevolent people determined to replace general tolerance and freedom of speech with a rigid conformity to a strict moral code from which there can be no dissent on pain of immediate "cancellation". She also takes a swipe against the proposed "Hatred and Hate Offences Bill" which will have the terrible effect of causing us all to mind our ps and qs and never to express a negative opinion about anyone or anything in the future if we ever want to open our mouths in public again.

Look: it's fine to debate the legislation. And to lobby against its introduction. But any such agitation has to be based on genuine arguments, and discussion with people whose opinions may differ so that a genuinely beneficial and widely supported law can emerge. Whipping up outrage through the use of straw man arguments based on highly dubious communications seen only by Mediahuis staff (allegedly) is not the way to go about it.

For the same reason you and other people feel its problematic: the definition of hate is suspiciously vague; and I'm.not convinced that anything that is being criminalised needs to.be criminalised.

Do you write stuff for the Government? You've typed a lot and said nothing.

There is no further dialogue. The legislation has been drafted, passed by the Dail and will probably be passed in the Seanad and that's that.

The Governmen't solution is to write something very vague, on purpose, to stifle freedom of expression.

Here's a black and white question for you. If I continually post that I believe there are only two genders or that I don't believe people can change genders, could I be charged with hate speech?

It’s whether or not a law could be considered excessively vague, would render it unconstitutional, or not. The test would be whether it meets the understanding of an ordinary or reasonable person, in this case their understanding of the word ‘hate’. It’s not required to be explicitly defined in Irish law, and there’s nothing special about the idea of it being contested in the Courts.

I wouldn’t fancy anyone’s chances in doing so though, particularly as they might well be viewed as being a bit special, or unreasonable, as opposed to being an ordinary or reasonable person who understands what hate means in the context in which it is being used in the legislation being discussed.

It didn’t go well for this smartarse -

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30987858.html

A meeting on changes to children,s education has being cancelled because some self appointed activists find such a discussion " hateful " .

And this before the passing of the planned law, lets hope Aonto manage to find another venue where parents can voice his or her concerns.

Concerns about what?

Ah well, at least parents have a constitutional right to home school their children, should they see fit.

I'm not so sure.

Opposing views as to what constitutes 'hate' are not that hard to find. Any learned barrister could find endless opposing opinions.

I would prefer that if they are bringing in laws, that there is no ambiguity around them. Even the fact that people are discussing whether it is constitutional or not when it is still passing through the houses says a lot.

I get that they don't want to back down, but it's important to get these things right.

"Sexualise and indoctrinate children"?

"Pornography"?

Yeah, I'm gonna stick my neck out and say that IS hate speech.

And if someine wants to challenge me, fine - but before you do: tell me if you think the claims of sexualisation and pornography on the proposeed syllabus are accurate (in which case prove it), or if you think they're false tell.me why they're NOT hate speech.