Alan Ringwood: Religious beliefs must be open to scrutiny and, sometimes, to ridicule

Followers of flat earth theories should not expect to go unchallenged for their beliefs, no matter how firmly held. Image / Getty Images

OPINION

The Government’s proposed speech-banning legislation was highly problematic, so it is welcome news that it has been dropped.

But the Government has not had the good sense to dump it completely.

There are worrying signs that the muddle might yet be disinterred, and a resurrection attempt made. The Greens have expressed disappointment, and the matter has been hospital-passed to the Law Commission to take forward. It is therefore important to understand what Labour and the Greens want to ban, why the bill was woefully misconceived, and why it should be properly abandoned.

Illustration / Rod Emmerson

The Human Rights (Incitement on Ground of Religious Belief) Amendment Bill targeted anti-religious speech and would have treated speech that incites “religious disharmony” exactly the same way as speech that incites racial disharmony.

At first blush, this might seem fine, perhaps even good in the wake of the Christchurch mosque atrocity. But it’s plain that the proposed law would have done nothing to prevent that horror.

We have very good reasons in Aotearoa New Zealand to discourage speech that brings people into contempt or ridicule solely by reason of their colour or race. Race and colour are innate, immutable characteristics, not a tenable ground for contempt or ridicule.

Religious beliefs are different, in countless ways.

Religious beliefs are (or should be) open to scrutiny, challenge, debate, change, and also, on occasion, ridicule.

Take Young Earth Creationism, for example. This religious belief holds that the Earth was created by the Abrahamic God between 6000 and 10,000 years ago. I will not shy away from stating bluntly that this is simply wrong.

Other religious groups hold beliefs that many New Zealanders would find immoral, unjust, repressive, outmoded, and ridiculous. To take a local example, in 2016 Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki blamed gay people for the Christchurch earthquake. Our then Prime Minister, John Key, labelled this appalling claim “ridiculous”.

Alan Ringwood. Photo / Supplied, File

It was indeed ridiculous, and ridiculing the belief was a perfectly proper response. The belief was also contemptible.

This brings us back to the paused “hate speech” ban, which would have made it a criminal offence to bring any group of people into contempt or ridicule by reason of their religious beliefs. This would have been a de facto blasphemy law.

Under the proposed law, were a New Zealand cleric to give a similar fiery sermon about Auckland floods being caused by gays and were our current Prime Minister then to ridicule that ridiculous belief, or rightly call it contemptible, the Prime Minister would be at risk of prosecution - potentially along with media commenting on it - rather than the preacher who was stirring up hatred against our gay community.

Criminalising speech which holds religious beliefs in ridicule or contempt is a dangerous gambit. Politicians should not be at risk of prosecution for ridiculing the beliefs of hate preachers or calling those beliefs contemptible. Booksellers should not have to seek legal advice before stocking Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great or Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, which both treat religious beliefs with ridicule and contempt.

Law-abiding citizens should not have to worry about criminal liability for screening Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which likewise skewers and lampoons religious beliefs.

Religions are powerful and influential institutions. Holding them to account is essential in a modern society.

Mocking religion can be speaking truth to power. Being free to do so is a sign that one is living in a free democracy and not a repressive theocracy.

As I write this, the clerical rulers of Iran have just sentenced a young couple to more than 10 years in prison for dancing in the street. We should be free to condemn the likes of these clerics, and the religious beliefs that underlie such egregious injustices, including by way of ridicule or contempt if we wish, without worrying that we too might be imprisoned.

There is another international element. New Zealand is a signatory to, and is bound by, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The International Covenant does allow for statutory prohibitions on the promotion of hostility or violence on religious grounds. But, by also criminalising types of contempt and ridicule, this bill would have segued from prohibiting hate speech into banning blasphemy.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has clearly stated that prohibitions of lack of respect for religion are incompatible with the International Covenant. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has similarly decried blasphemy laws, noting that they are counter-productive, and has called for blasphemy laws to be repealed, due to their stifling impact on healthy dialogue and debate about religion.

Until surprisingly recently, New Zealand still had a blasphemy law. Under s.123 of the Crimes Act, blasphemy was punishable by up to a year in prison. The blasphemy law fell into disuse, partly because freedom of expression is protected by our Bill of Rights Act, and it was repealed in 2019.

It is troubling that the Law Commission is now being tasked with progressing a new blasphemy law; and ironic that this is by way of an amendment to human rights legislation which, by straying beyond hatred into criminalising ridicule, would in fact breach human rights.

Speech that ridicules or condemns religious beliefs should not be miscategorised as “hate speech”. Attempts to ban antireligious speech are regressive, inappropriate, authoritarian, and likely to prove problematic.

The Government got this right in 2019. If it does not pull the plug completely on a new speech ban it will leave an open goal for opposition parties to shoot into in an election year.

- Alan Ringwood is a lawyer. He was for many years, while at Bell Gully, the Herald’s editorial lawyer.