Religion now a crime?
Yes, apparently practising your religion (a human right, remember) is now illegal in Scotland. Celtic goalkeeper Artur Boruc has been given a police caution – which results in a criminal record – for the heinous crime of crossing himself.
Numerous politicians (Alex Salmond, who said ‘The procurator fiscal has taken leave of their senses.’, most notable among them) have condemned this assault on religious freedom, but whether they will actually do anything about it (a new law perhaps?) remains to be seen.
[EDIT] The Crown Office has issued a statement to the effect that (as suggested by Neil’s comment yesterday) the caution given to Artur Boruc was for other ‘offensive gestures’ rather than crossing himself.[/EDIT]
August 27th, 2006 at 11:44 am
He was ‘practicing’ his religion in a manner that caused offense to other people. If he’d crossed himself normally that would be fine but he made the point of facing the rangers fans, giving them the V sign making ‘another obscene gesture’ and THEN crossing himself. The cross was nothing to do with his religion, it was a deliberate attempt to inflame the crowds.
Would giving a Nazi salute to a group of Jews be acceptable if it’s only practicing your beliefs?
August 27th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
(And yes, that was one of the earlier invocation’s of Godwin’s Laws I’ve ever used)
August 27th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
A nazi salute isn’t a legally-protected practice of religion, crossing yourself is.
September 1st, 2006 at 11:49 am
The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 “creates an offence of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion”. So whilst religion is not a crime, Artur Boruc could possibly (paradoxically) be in breach of the act for stirring up hatred against himself by juxtaposing his religious gesture with more inflammatory ones: however, I’ve not seen the incident so this is purely a thinking aloud.
Editor’s note: The original link in this comment pointed to a non-existent Wikipedia article. I have edited the link to make it point to the online text of the statute to which the commenter refers.
September 1st, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Not true. Quote from the Act itself:
‘A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.’
In other words, you need to be threatening in some way, which Artur Boruc clearly was not.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Religion hinders people to think for themselves, especially the monotheistic ones; in doing so they lift responsibility from one’s shoulders … In my opinion THAT is a crime. So in short : religion is not a crime, but the result is.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Bob, I have to disagree with you on that one. Just because someone is religious does not mean that they give up the ability to think for themselves. Look at the number of Catholics who disagree with the Church’s stances on gays, condoms, and other things. This example is repeated across most faiths.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Boruc did not give the V sign and he did not face the rangers fans.
he blesses himself all the time in goals like all footballs are superticious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onGa9BuNkwo
check the link and people can see for themselves if Boruc was trying to provoke anybody.
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Cheers for the video Tony. At least now people can see what he actually did (given the level of swearing from the Orcs I guess it’s no surprise the BBC haven’t shown this video) instead of getting second- or third-hand reports from tabloids. Had Boruc been looking towards the crowd at the time I might have seen the critic’s point, but he wasn’t.