This article was originally published on the NSS’s website on 23 July 2024.

It’s easy to see how the idea of being saved by an act of ‘divine intervention’ might well appeal to a narcissist like Donald Trump. But his claim that he had ‘God on his side’ during the recent failed assassination attempt is more likely to be the sentiment of a grifter exploiting religion for political gain.

But sincere belief in the supernatural isn’t necessary for Trump and his cronies to dismantle America’s wall of separation between church and state. His nomination of conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his previous term of office paved the way for the overturning of Roe v Wade—a significant win for evangelicals. With a return to the White House looking distinctly possible, more laws to enforce the doctrines of his Christian support base could be on the cards.

The rise of Christian nationalism in the US is another indicator of a backsliding of secular liberal democratic values, the foundation upon which many successful modern societies are built.

Right across the world, wherever religion and political power are entwined, the chips are down for liberalism. Whether it’s Protestant evangelicalism in the US, Hindu nationalism in India, or Islamism in the Middle East, the closer clerics are to governance, the lower the likelihood that individual rights and freedoms can flourish.

Europe, too, is facing testing times.

American Christian Right organisations are pouring millions of dollars into the continent to fuel campaigns aimed at diminishing the rights of women and sexual minorities. Christian identity politics has become intertwined with nationalist ideologies, shaping the political landscape and contributing to the growth of far-right movements across the continent.

Meanwhile, mass migration and a failure to integrate sizeable Muslim populations have contributed to the undermining and challenging of fundamental liberal values like free speech, equality, and state neutrality.

One of secularism’s most important roles in protecting liberal values is in preserving freedom of expression—making sure that individuals are free to voice their ideas, beliefs, criticisms, and scorn of religious ideas without the threat of censorship or punishment.

Here in the UK, an incident at a Batley school starkly illustrated the erosion of this freedom. A teacher who used a cartoon of Muhammad to teach pupils about debates on free expression faced immediate and credible death threats and now must live under a new identity.

The writing has been on the wall ever since the Rushdie affair. But a spate of violent protests and murders across Europe since has sent the clear message to European citizens that, even if blasphemy laws have been abolished (and not all have been), they remain in place for Islam, and will be enforced by intimidation and violence.

Meanwhile, growing numbers of women and young girls on the continent are compelled to obey sexist religious modesty codes and thousands of children from minority backgrounds are attending illegal schools run by religious extremists.

Meaningful debates on these matters have become increasingly challenging due to the pervasive influence of ‘Islamophobia’, a term once noted by Christopher Hitchens as strategically employed to insinuate a ‘foul prejudice lurks behind any misgivings about Islam’s infallible message’. The language of Islamophobia has fostered a fear of being labelled ‘racist’ or bigoted, causing many liberals to refrain from criticising any manifestation of Islam, however worthy of disdain. This has created a void that is exploited by extremists on the far right.

Meanwhile, a crisis in confidence that secular liberalism can counter the ascendancy of radical Islam and ‘wokery’ has led some public intellectuals to be lured by the notion that Christianity is somehow indispensable in safeguarding the Western way of life. Daniel James Sharp and Matt Johnson have presented compelling critiques of this ‘New Theism’ and its defence of Christian privilege. But entrusting the preservation of liberal democracy to a belief one considers untrue yet expedient seems precarious at best.

All this is to say that the current climate for liberal values and human rights is challenging.

Amidst the ongoing threat posed by religious fundamentalism, a renewed embrace of the Enlightenment concept of separation of religion and state is sorely needed to safeguard individual rights and freedoms.

These are the issues we’ll be addressing at Secularism 2024, the National Secular Society’s upcoming conference on October 19th. A diverse range of expert speakers will shed light on some of the contemporary challenges faced by liberal societies and explore the role of secularism in protecting liberal values and social cohesion.

To be part of this important conversation about democracy, freedom of speech, individual rights, and the rule of law, join us at Secularism 2024. Tickets are on sale now.

Related reading

What secularists want from the next UK Government, by Stephen Evans

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Donald Trump, political violence, and the future of America, by Daniel James Sharp

A reading list against the ‘New Theism’ (and an offer to debate), by Daniel James Sharp

White Christian Nationalism is rising in America. Separation of church and state is the antidote. By Rachel Laser

Reproductive freedom is religious freedom, by Andrew Seidel and Rachel Laser

The rise and fall of god(s) in Indian politics: Modi’s setback, Indic philosophy, and the freethought paradox, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Campaign ‘to unite India and save its secular soul’, by Puja Bhattacharjee

The resurgence of enlightenment in southern India: interview with Bhavan Rajagopalan, by Emma Park

Three years on, the lessons of Batley are yet to be learned, by Jack Rivington

Keir Starmer must bring the UK’s diverse but divided people together, by Megan Manson

Islamic identity politics is a threat to British democracy, by Khadija Khan

The hijab is the wrong symbol to represent women, by Khadija Khan

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

The perils of dropping a book, by Noel Yaxley

Free speech in Britain: a losing battle? by Porcus Sapiens

Cancel culture and religious intolerance: ‘Falsely Accused of Islamophobia’, by Steven Greer, by Daniel James Sharp

British Islam and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in universities: interview with Steven Greer, by Emma Park

Rushdie’s victory, by Daniel James Sharp

The Satanic Verses; free speech in the Freethinker, by Emma Park

The post An upcoming secularist conference on the safeguarding of liberal values in a time of crisis appeared first on The Freethinker.

The UK that goes to the polls on 4 July will be the most religiously diverse in election history. Less than half the population of England and Wales describe themselves as ‘Christian’. Most people in Scotland are now non-religious. And there are now more Catholics than Protestants in Northern Ireland, but even here we are seeing more and more people turning away from religion.

This sustained shift in demographics demands a radical response from the state. Entrenched Christian privilege and a laissez-faire approach to social cohesion are ill-suited to a religiously diverse, pluralistic population. That’s why the National Secular Society is calling on the next Government to seriously rethink the role of religion in public and political life.

Here’s what we want to see from the incoming Government.

Secular, inclusive education

Schools play a key role in shaping future generations and fostering a culture of tolerance and understanding. But faith schools build division into the system.

A third of all schools are faith schools. This isn’t sustainable. Already, the prevalence of religious schools means many nonreligious families have no choice other than a faith-based education for their children. This needs to be addressed.

Dividing children by religion leads to ethnic segregation, too. The next Government should commit to phasing out faith-based education to better encourage integration and ensure that every child can receive a secular education.

The calling of the election means that the outgoing Government’s plans to abolish the 50% admissions cap in faith-based academies hit the buffers. The Conservative manifesto revives plans to lift the cap and allow faith schools to apply 100% religious selection, paving the way for yet more discriminatory faith schools.

Worryingly, Labour didn’t oppose plans to scrap the cap and will come under pressure from regressive religious groups to reinstate this policy. They should resist.

Religious selection means faith schools are not only less religiously and ethnically diverse; they admit fewer children from poorer backgrounds, children in care, and children with special educational needs and disabilities. Any government interested in tackling unfairness and discrimination in education can’t afford to ignore the pernicious effects of faith-based admissions. That’s why it is alarming that Keir Starmer has said a Labour Government would be ‘even more supportive of faith schools’ than the current Government.

In all state-funded schools, even the two-thirds without a religious character, daily acts of ‘broadly Christian’ collective worship are required by law. This law, dating back to 1944, has no moral or educational basis. Teachers don’t support it and many schools flout it. Imposing worship in schools undermines children’s freedom of religion or belief and opens the door to evangelism in schools. We will encourage the next Government to support its repeal as soon as possible.

England’s outdated model of religious education dates back to a similar era. Labour’s plans to modernise the school curriculum must not shy away from reforms to liberate this subject area from the inappropriate control of religious interest groups. All children and young people should have an equal entitlement to an objective and critical education about worldviews, citizenship, and ethics.

We will also push for new legislation to boost Ofsted’s powers to crack down on unregistered religious schools operating illegally. The creation of a register of children not in school is a key part of this. During their time in office, the Conservatives made plenty of encouraging noises but ultimately failed to tackle the problem. The required legislation for a register was in the Schools Bill which was ditched by the Sunak Government in 2022. The Tory manifesto promises to revive the register plans.

Labour’s manifesto makes no such commitment, but the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, has previously signalled her support for a home-school register to deliver better oversight of home education, which in too many cases leads to children being indoctrinated with fundamentalist dogma in unsafe and illegal schools. She also says she wants ‘every child to receive a world-class education’. To achieve this, the next Government will need to stand up to religious lobbyists who impede attempts to protect the educational rights of children in independent and unregistered religious schools by spuriously claiming that such attempts violate religious freedom.

Free speech

For all its faults, the Conservative Government has shown willingness to protect the right to free expression. It was slow to do so when Islamic fundamentalists descended on a school in Batley in 2021. But after a parent was left pleading for mercy after her son was involved in the scuffing of a Quran in Kettlethorpe last year, the Home Secretary robustly asserted: ‘We do not have blasphemy laws in Great Britain, and must not be complicit in the attempts to impose them on this country.’

A recent recommendation for the creation of guidance to better protect schools and teachers facing blasphemy accusations should be adopted and implemented—as should the recommendation from Sara Khan, the Government’s Independent Advisor on Social Cohesion and Resilience, to create a special unit tasked with responding to ‘flashpoint incidents’ such as blasphemy protests.

The next Government needs to find ways to address anti-Muslim prejudice in ways that don’t impede the freedom to scrutinise and criticise Islamic beliefs, ideas, and practices. It needs to be clear that there is no right not to be offended—and no legal obligation to be reverent towards any religion.

In opposition, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, and the Greens have all shown a worrying disregard for free speech by uncritically adopting a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ proposed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)  for British Muslims. The concept of Islamophobia unhelpfully conflates hatred and discrimination against Muslims with criticism of Islam. This blurring is intentional. The silencing of scrutiny, criticism, mockery, and anything deemed ‘offensive’ has been a long-term aim of Islamist groups, some of which have been too close to Labour for comfort. Labour has promised to reverse the Conservatives’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate incidents that fall short of criminality. There are also fears that a Labour Government will seek to incorporate the APPG definition into law.

Hindu groups have jumped on the bandwagon, calling on the next Government to criminalise ‘Hinduphobia’. Any attempt to do so will be met with fierce opposition from secularists and free speech campaigners. Resisting the politics of competitive grievances and sectarianism is something the next Government needs to do if Britain is to avoid becoming increasingly fraught with ethnic and religious tensions.

Towards a secular democracy

It makes no sense for one of the most diverse and secularised nations in the world to retain an established religion.

One manifestation of the Church of England’s established status is the twenty-six unelected Anglican clerics sitting as of right as legislators in the House of Lords. In 2022, Keir Starmer called the Lords ‘undemocratic’ and ‘indefensible’. He launched plans drawn up by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to replace the upper chamber with an elected Assembly of the Nations and Regions. The plans would bring a welcome end to reserved seats for bishops.

Despite originally suggesting the plans be implemented within the first five years of a Labour Government, the party is now promising a much more incremental approach. Replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber remains the goal, but the manifesto commits only to ‘immediate modernisation’ of the Lords by introducing an upper age limit of 80 and scrapping hereditary peers. Secularists will be arguing that any immediate modernisation must also include the removal of the archaic, unfair, and undemocratic bishops’ bench.

But we need to go further. A state religion is incompatible with a democracy in which all citizens of every religion and belief are equal. The announcement of the election unfortunately spelt the end of a bill backed by the National Secular Society to disestablish the Church of England.  But we’ll urge the next Government to engage with this long overdue democratic reform to transform the UK into a fully secular democracy, free from religious privilege.

A new administration will bring fresh hope for other necessary reforms, such as assisted dying, making wedding law fairer for all, outlawing caste discrimination, removing the advancement of religion as a charitable purpose, and effectively protecting children from abuse in religious settings.

Ultimately, Britain needs a new political framework to foster unity and keep religious fundamentalism in check by balancing religious freedom with other fundamental human rights. Secularism offers such a framework.

That’s why we’ll be urging the next Government to adopt secularist principles and policies which move us towards a freer and fairer society, where people can live by the creed they choose but where no particular religion or belief is privileged or imposed.

Related reading

Faith schools: where do the political parties stand? by Stephen Evans

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Religion and belief in schools: lessons to be learnt, by Russell Sandberg

The case for secularism (or, the church’s new clothes), by Neil Barber

Three years on, the lessons of Batley are yet to be learned, by Jack Rivington

Secularism is a feminist issue, by Megan Manson

Blasphemy and bishops: how secularists are navigating the culture wars, by Emma Park

Bad Religious Education, by Siniša Prijić

Silence of the teachers, by Nath Jnan

The perils of dropping a book, by Noel Yaxley

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

Cancel culture and religious intolerance: ‘Falsely Accused of Islamophobia’, by Steven Greer, by Daniel James Sharp

‘This is not rocket science’: the Disestablishment of the Church of England Bill 2023, interview with Paul Scriven by Emma Park

The post What secularists want from the next UK Government appeared first on The Freethinker.

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, raised eyebrows recently by suggesting that Labour in power would be ‘even more supportive of faith schools’ than the current government.

Given the current administration’s enthusiasm for faith-based education, it is hard to see how this could be achieved in practice. It may have been an empty gesture, a case of playing to the gallery – Starmer was speaking during a visit to a state-funded faith school. But if he is serious, the implications are worrying.

Labour’s uncritical support for religiously segregated education is alarming – especially as religiously segregated often means, in practice, racially segregated too. In pluralistic societies, inclusive secular schools can be powerful agents of social integration, forging connections that transcend the boundaries of race and religion. In a world riven with religiously motivated conflicts and tensions, it is unwise for the state to fund a form of education that restricts exposure to diverse worldviews and to critical thinking.

Britain’s Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Hindu faith schools are largely monocultural zones – silos of segregation that do nothing to foster greater social cohesion. Interfaith work between schools is often offered as a remedy to this, but it is a poor substitute for a school in which children of different backgrounds are educated together and mix with one another every day.

Earlier this year the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged the UK to end the use of religion as a selection criterion for school admissions. Starmer’s promise not to ‘tinker’ with faith schools signals his intent to do nothing about discriminatory admissions.

The evidence is clear, though, that religious selection also acts as a form of socio-economic segregation. Recent research additionally reveals that Church of England and Catholic primaries ‘serve as hubs of relative advantage’, less likely than community schools to admit children with special educational needs and disabilities.

It seems that Labour’s promise to ‘break down the barriers to opportunity’ only applies where it will not upset religious interests.

Probably the biggest clash between education authorities and faith schools in recent years has been over the introduction of relationships and sex education (RSE) – particularly the requirement for this to be LGBT-inclusive. Catholic, ultra-Orthodox and Muslim activists have objected to requirements imposed on schools to teach pupils about sex, the existence of same-sex relationships and the legal rights of LGBT people. Good quality RSE needs to be evidence-based, impartial and free from ideology of all kinds. It would be shameful if Labour’s keenness to appease religious groups were to allow faith-based prejudice to undermine the subject, leaving faith school pupils in the dark and young LGBT people feeling isolated.

The 50 per cent admissions cap is another area where religious groups are lobbying for privileges. This is the rule that where newly established academies with a religious character are oversubscribed, half of their places must be allocated without reference to faith. It is the only meaningful effort we have seen to promote inclusivity and address the problems caused by faith-based schooling. However, Catholic and Jewish groups have been lobbying to get it abolished. In 2018 they almost succeeded, but Theresa May’s government eventually backtracked in the face of vigorous opposition. It would be bizarre for any party to resurrect a regressive policy that risks increasing levels of discrimination and making integration less likely. Yet under the Conservatives, the cap remains under review.

When it comes to faith schools, all the major parties appear minded to maintain the status quo.

The Liberal Democrats have typically advocated a more inclusive approach to state education. In 2017 the party passed a policy to support an end to religious selection in publicly funded schools. But the policy failed to appear in the 2019 manifesto – and there was no mention of reform to faith schools in the party’s ‘core policy offer’ on schools that was set out at their conference in September.

The Greens, meanwhile, are much more upfront about their vision for an inclusive and secular education system. Their education policy is underpinned by sound secularist principles and includes ending the state funding of faith schools, removing religious opt-outs from equality legislation and abolishing the archaic requirement on schools to provide daily acts of collective worship.

The Greens would also prohibit schools from delivering a form of religious education that ‘encourages adherence to any particular religious belief’.

England’s outdated model of religious education is certainly ripe for reform. Faith schools still teach the subject ‘within the tenets of their faith’, which means the subject is often confessional in nature, rather than objective, critical and pluralistic. Even in secular schools, RE remains compulsory yet separate from the national curriculum – and heavily influenced by religious interest groups, through bodies called standing advisory councils on religious education (SACREs), which determine the syllabus for each local area.

Both Labour and the Lib Dems have promised to review the curriculum if they form the next government. This ought to include replacing religious education with a more relevant subject that promotes critical thinking while giving pupils a solid understanding of diversity of belief and non-belief among the UK population and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. But whether either party will be bold enough to wrest this area of the curriculum away from vested religious interests is another question.

Whichever party forms the next government, it is imperative that they tackle the scourge of unregistered schools. An estimated 6,000 children are being systemically undereducated in illegal and often unsafe ‘schools’ that teach a narrow, religion-based curriculum without oversight or adequate safeguarding.

This year, the government scrapped proposed legislation which included measures to address this issue, such as a register of children not in school and new powers for Ofsted to act against schools which operate covertly. Despite junking the Schools Bill, in which these proposed measures were contained, the government insists that it remains committed to the bill’s objectives concerning unregistered schools. Labour has also pledged to crack down on unregistered schools but suggested it would take a ‘different approach’. What that may be remains to be seen.

But it is not enough to focus solely on the illegal sector. The more diverse our society becomes, the more integrated it needs to be. Faith schools build division into the system by separating children along the lines of their parents’ culture and religious belief, encouraging them to identify with this from an early age, rather than allowing them to make up their own minds about who they are and what they believe. Schools that educate children together without imposing a religious framework on them or discriminating against some in favour of others are the only model that public money should support.

There is also a big question mark over the sustainability of the Church of England’s role in state education. Church attendance is at a record low. Data from the latest British Social Attitudes survey suggests that just three per cent of those aged 18-24 – tomorrow’s parents – would describe themselves as Anglican. Yet the Church of England runs a quarter of primary schools in England and is the biggest sponsor of academies. Despite all the talk about faith schools offering choice, it is already the case that in many areas of the country, families have little or no option other than a church school.

The Church of England is currently targeting schools as part of its plans to ‘double the number of children and young people who are active Christian disciples by 2030’. It is a sign of how privileged the established church is that so few politicians appear willing to question its exploitation of state schools as mission fields for Anglican evangelism. The more pluralistic and secular Britain becomes, the less appropriate will it be for churches to exert influence over state education.

It is unfortunate that, for the upcoming general election at least, faith schools are unlikely to be on the agenda. But the case for inclusive, secular education will only grow stronger. Politicians cannot file it away in the ‘too difficult’ department forever.

Enjoy this article? Subscribe to our free fortnightly newsletter for the latest updates on freethought. Or make a donation to support our work into the future.

On religion in schools, see further:

Faith in education, by Emma Park (New Humanist)

Religion and belief in schools: lessons to be learnt, by Russell Sandberg (Freethinker)

Post-Christian Britain and religion in schools, National Secular Society podcast

Unregistered (illegal) schools with Eve Sacks, NSS podcast

A new Catholic school for Peterborough, NSS podcast

The Church of England’s influence over education, NSS podcast

The post Faith schools: where do the political parties stand? appeared first on The Freethinker.

‘Without free speech no search for truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked…Better a thousand-fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech.’

So said Charles Bradlaugh, the radical politician, freethinker, and founder of the National Secular Society, in a speech at London’s Hall of Science over 150 years ago. His words are still profoundly relevant today, as societies and legislators grapple with the concept of free speech and where its limits should lie.

The human impulse for free thought and speech has, throughout history, clashed with religious sensibilities, and religious conservatives have consistently sought to stifle debate, criticism and mockery of their beliefs.

‘Cancel culture’ may seem like a modern phenomenon, but the ostracism faced by those who dare to speak against the prevailing orthodoxies of the day is nothing new. After being elected as MP for Northampton, Bradlaugh was prevented from taking his seat for many years on account of his well-known atheist views and broadsides against religion.

Religion’s political influence has resulted in blasphemy laws that criminalise insulting or showing contempt for ideas which are deemed sacred. Around 70 of the world’s 195 countries have blasphemy laws. Penalties for violating them can range from fines to imprisonment and death. 

Secularists have long led the charge to abolish such laws. Charles Bradlaugh first proposed a bill to abolish the UK’s blasphemy laws in 1889. He had himself narrowly escaped a blasphemy conviction in 1882 for his assistance in producing The Freethinker. Its editor, George William Foote, was less fortunate and found himself imprisoned in 1883 for twelve months with hard labour. Once released, Foote went on to succeed Bradlaugh as President of the National Secular Society.

Decades of subsequent campaigning culminated in the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel finally being abolished in England and Wales in 2008, and in Scotland in 2021. They remain on the statute books in Northern Ireland, albeit unused. But the threat of legal impediments to free speech about religion remains.

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 created new offences of stirring up religious hatred. As originally drafted, the legislation would have replaced the scrapped blasphemy law with a wider-ranging prohibition that would cover not just Christianity but all religions.

A coalition of secularists and other free speech defenders had to win a hard-fought campaign to secure a vital freedom of expression clause. This ensures that nothing in the Act prohibits or restricts ‘discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult, or abuse of particular religions, or the beliefs or practices of its adherents.’

Religious and non-religious groups alike united to successfully campaign for similar amendments in Scotland’s Hate Crime Act in 2021, which introduced several offences of ‘stirring up hatred’, including on the grounds of religion. The Act, which imposes stricter limitations on free speech about other contentious topics, such as transgender identity, has yet to be implemented. [See our discussion of this topic – Ed.]

The most restrictive speech laws remaining in the UK can be found in Northern Ireland, where ‘stirring up hatred’ offences criminalise ‘threatening, abusive or insulting’ forms of expression deemed ‘likely’ to stir up hatred or fear against religious groups, even if there is no intent to do so. The lack of a requirement for mens rea (intent), and of protections for free speech about religion, reveals a worrying disregard for freedom of expression.

Most people will accept there must be some limitations on speech – including both what they say in person and what they publish online. Laws against harassment, or incitement to commit crimes, as well as restrictions on libel or slanderous speech, are reasonable. But to put the emphasis of the law not on what has been said, but on the subjective feelings of a person who has been insulted or offended, is to ring the death knell for free speech. It is a dangerous road to go down.

Perhaps an even greater threat today comes from self-censorship: blasphemy codes which people feel obliged to impose on themselves not out of fear of breaking the law, but because of the threat of violence.

The declaration of a fatwa on Salman Rushdie, the murderous attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and other outpourings of anger and violence from conservative Muslims with hurt feelings, has highlighted a clash between certain interpretations of Islam and free speech. And it has created an impulse to protect religious sensitivities to the detriment of free expression.

The incident in Batley last year, where a teacher was forced into hiding in fear of his life after using a cartoon of Mohammed to teach about freedom of expression, revealed an unwillingness on the part of the political and media establishment to stand up to fundamentalist demands.

The outcome of a subsequent investigation was that the teacher should not have shown the cartoon. The teacher was forced out of his job and his family from their home. This was a victory for the religious bullies and essentially a capitulation to the mob. Liberal principles were sacrificed for the sake of expediency and a quiet life. The problem is that accommodations made to religious fundamentalists will bring anything but a quiet life. They simply invite further demands and create an expectation that religious sensibilities will always be protected.

Meanwhile, a well-meaning attempt to tackle anti-Muslim prejudice by promoting a flawed definition of ‘Islamophobia’, as has been proposed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, risks further self-censorship.

The definition of Islamophobia proposed by the APPG is that it is ‘a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’. This unhelpfully conflates criticism of Islamic practices with hatred of Muslims. It has the clear potential to chill freedom of expression, and in particular academic and journalistic freedom.

Attempts to police speech about Islam have been made at the international level. Between 1999 and 2010, a coalition of 57 Islamic nations known as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) pushed ‘defamation of religion’ resolutions at the United Nations. Proponents argued that Muslims were facing growing intolerance and discrimination, which they described as ‘Islamophobia’. But human rights and secularist groups warned that the focus on protecting Islam rather than individuals was an attempt to impose a global blasphemy law.

The campaign by the Islamic nations faced opposition from western democracies, which argued that the ‘defamation of religion’ resolutions would violate the right to freedom of speech, thought, conscience and religion. Eventually the defamation approach was abandoned in favour of a resolution on ‘combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatisation of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief.’

People have rights; ideas do not. The state should protect individuals, but not their beliefs. As the writer Kenan Malik argues, a distinction between people and ideas is essential both so that people may be treated equally and so that ideas may be challenged and changed.

The prevailing ‘culture of offence’, as some have called it, in which speech subjectively deemed ‘offensive’ or ‘hateful’ is considered beyond the pale, is toxic to democracy and harmful to the advancement of human rights.

The best way to foster social cohesion and preserve harmony between people of all religions and beliefs is to recognise that the freedom to question, criticise or mock religion is every bit essential as the freedom to practise religion. True freedom of religion or belief for all cannot be realised without guaranteeing freedom of expression.

Government and civil society need to send a clear message that in a liberal democracy there can be no right not to be offended. Being offended from time to time is the price we all pay for living in a free society. It is a price worth paying, because free speech means nothing without the right to offend.

Standing up for up for these liberal principles is crucial to the preservation of individual rights and freedoms. That is why promoting free speech as a positive value remains at the core of the National Secular Society’s work today.

The post Secularism and the struggle for free speech appeared first on The Freethinker.