I oppose a ‘gay-hate’ law because that is not what criminal legislation is for

Should ‘gay-hate’ be a crime? Stonewall, the gay lobbying group of which I remain a solid supporter, has just sent me a briefing paper urging members to support Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, in his proposals to make inciting hatred of homosexuals a criminal offence. The government is proposing new amendments to its Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, adding ‘Hatred on the Grounds of Sexual Orientation’ to the offences of incitement to hatred on the grounds of race or religion.

I’m not convinced. I was equally unconvinced it was appropriate to prosecute incitement to religious hatred. My doubts about that (relatively recent) arrival on the statute book were various, but among them was the suspicion that this would prove the edge of a slippery slope. Other groups — gays? women? the disabled? — would soon step forward asking for the same protection.

One such group now has. Let me outline my doubts in this case. First the difficulties of implementation. When seeking to identify proposed legislation of doubtful practical use, it is a useful rule of thumb to watch out for ministers and lobbyists claiming its virtue to be that it will ‘send out a message’ that this or that is socially unacceptable. It is as though the criminal law was really just a branch of public service advertising — another way, alongside radio, television and the newspapers, or perhaps direct leafleting, of signalling a recommended set of values to the citizenry.

And so it is in this case. Stonewall’s paper concludes by declaring that this provision ‘would send a strong signal’ that homophobic behaviour ‘is unacceptable in a civilised society’. Warning bells should ring at once. When the Theft Act was introduced in 1967, I don’t recall that anyone claimed its value to be that it ‘sent out a message’ that stealing was unacceptable.