I'm a big fan of free speech, and as the Hitch says in the quote above, that includes the ability to mock and ridicule ideas that come from authority, particularly religious ones that wish to control and constrain non-religious people. The new bill coming up for its first reading in Parliament, although nothing to do with religion, is relevant to the free speech arena. It aims to limit the "nuisance and noise" thresholds for protests, this is a worrying development in my view; the wording does seem very much open to interpretation and there's no doubt that the number of scenarios to which it could be applied is very large. I see that Labour are going to vote against it, it'll be interesting to see how it progresses as it strikes me as totally unnecessary. Hopefully the upper house will water it down sensibly.
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