Britain has no guarantee of free speech written into a constitution, though in practice it has a great deal more free speech than the U.S. But Tony Blair is trying to put a stop to all that, at least in matters of religion. Britain already has a blasphemy law that, according to Murdo MacLeod and Martin Hannan of the Scotsman, protects the Christian faith and only the Christian faith from ridicule. The reporters note that the law is seldom enforced.

The new law would forbid "incitement to religious hatred" as a part of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Bill. Rather than do the sensible thing and end the special protections for Christianity under the blasphemy laws, this new bill would include all religions. (Jews and Sikhs are already protected based on their ethnicity. The aim is to expand protections to multi-ethnic religions.)

When every religion in England (with the exception of the Buddhists) has a God on its side, you have to wonder why they need the protection of the government? I'll come back to that in a moment, but first let's see what the Devil's been up to in Scotland.

The Devil at work in Scotland

The Edinburgh Dungeon is one of a small chain of tourist attractions that focus on the horrors of yesteryear. Here's what they say of themselves—

.... Terror and torture, mutilation and mass murder, persecution and pestilence: scenes from the more terrible chapters of centuries of Scottish history envelop you in all their grisly and gruesome detail.

Witch-hunters, grave-robbers, murderers, cannibals, executioners - you will find them all here, along with their wretched victims. And remember, as you wander further into the Dungeon's grim and bloody depths, all that you see and experience really happened - much of it disconcertingly close by.

The Gazeteer for Scotland adds—

.... Other experiences include the Old Town of Edinburgh as it was centuries ago, complete with dirt, disease, waste being thrown from a tenement window and the 'body cart' waiting to pick up the unfortunate victims of plague. The medical history of the city is also represented, with early attempts at surgery portrayed and the mortuary where those who died were brought.

There is also a range of torture equipment on display, including the innocently-named 'maiden' guillotine, used to execute Edinburgh criminals between 1564 and 1720, together with headcrushers, thumbscrews and flesh earers.

In other words, it's the Standard American TV diet with a little history thrown into the pot.

Each year the attraction must renew its entertainment license before a licensing board, which normally would be routine. But this year there is opposition—from a church. What the London Road Parish Church dislikes in particular is a feature known as "Satan's Grotto."

The ... church has complained about elves impaled on spikes, roasting robins and Father Christmas boiling in a witch's cauldron. Also under fire is children being asked whether they had been bad rather than good, offered 'nasty presents' instead of sweets and invited to take part in a 'yucky dip'.

The Christians claim the associations with evil are at least corrupting and at worst something that could lead to devil worship.
....

Malcolm Dickson, ... who wrote the letter of objection on behalf of the congregation, added: "We felt that it was time to make our voices heard. Their 'Santa display' twisted the whole meaning of Christmas. It is supposed to be about the birth of Christ and hope, not about evil.

"If this display had been aimed at any other religion it would have been closed down. People seem to think they can get away with this because it's Christianity."

How we prefer our torture entertainment in the U.S.

Now in the U.S. the fundamentalist churches present this type of entertainment for free, and any church that would like to join in may do so with the aid of the Hell House Outreach Kit. Here's how Chuck Goldberg of the Destiny Church describes the Hell House as presented at the Abundant Life Christian Center in Arvada, Colorado—

A tour guide, taunting and laughing throughout, leads visitors in groups of 30 through five scenes depicting the results of wrong choices that can take one to hell. Among the scenes is a blood-spattered drunk-driving father, writhing in physical and emotional torment outside his overturned car, several feet from his dead wife and daughter.

The most controversial scenes are the funeral of a homosexual AIDS victim, and a distraught, remorseful abortion patient beneath a bloody sheet begging for the procedure to end.

Each scene is portrayed as graphically as possible to maximize sin's impact. In scene six, visitors descend an elevator into hell itself, where Satan brags of his handiwork. Tormented souls agonize on the floor amidst evil-sounding music, thick smoke, sour smells, and insufferable heat. An angel, however, suddenly appears, overpowers Satan, and escorts visitors to heaven, where they see Jesus and hear the plan of salvation. Counselors then await to solidify their decision.

I love a happy ending, don't you? But I began to wonder what the Incitement to Religious Hatred law might say about all this.

What Britain's Incitement to Religious Hatred law does and does not intend to prevent

The British Home Office offers a FAQ on the new bill and gives an example of what would be forbidden—

... an extreme racist organisation widely distributing material setting out a range of insulting and highly inflammatory reasons for hating Islam. Such reasons have included suggesting that Muslims are a threat to British people and liable to molest women and that they should be urgently driven out of Britain.

The Home Office claims that the bill will not only protect believers but non-believers as well—

The new legislation will protect people of all religious beliefs, applying equally to incited hatred against Muslims, or Christians, or any other religious group. It will also protect people targeted because of their lack of religious beliefs or because they do not share the religious beliefs of the perpetrator.

But you really have to doubt their sincerity when you read their bullshit non-answer to the following question—

What about protection for other at risk groups such as those with disabilities or those who suffer because of their sexual orientation? Why isn’t the incitement to racial hatred provisions being extended to protect those groups?

The extension of the incitement provisions to cover people identified by their religion as well as race, is the closing of an unacceptable loop-hole that mono-ethnic religious groups (such as Jews and Sikhs) are covered by the existing offence whereas multi-ethnic religious groups (such as Muslims and Hindus) are not. The Government keeps provisions under constant review and is open to considering whether further extensions are needed.

The Home Office also assures that the law will not interfere with—

• Proselytising one’s own religion or urging followers of a different religion to cease practising theirs; for example Christians claiming that Jesus Christ is the way the truth, the life and the only way to God, Muslims exhorting people to submit to the will of Allah, or Atheists claiming that there is no God;
• Telling jokes about religions;
• Publishing or reading from religious texts such as the Bible or the Qur’an.

Unless, of course, "a person were to use threatening, abusive or insulting words/actions with the intent or likely effect that hatred would be stirred up whilst undertaking the actions listed above."

The true effect of the new law

What a hypocritical mess this bill creates! Since it is clear that under the law Muslims, Jews and Christians will be free to tell each other (as well as gay people, women seeking abortion and nonbelievers) that they are depraved scum of the earth who will burn in hell forever, the real effect of the law will be to hand the government the power to make arbitrary decisions as to which religious statements it likes and which it doesn't. And the Home Office acknowledges this—

The need to take into account all the circumstances of a case means that it is very difficult to give a yes/no answer to whether particular statements will be caught by the new offence. For example the context and audience of what is said are as critically important as the words themselves. The same series of critical statements might be more likely to stir up hatred in the backroom of a pub full of drunken men in area of deprivation and tension than said an in academic debate in a university.

In fact, the Home Office gives an example (using a Muslim, of course) of the type of behavior that would be forbidden—

The Muslim cleric el-Faisal gave lectures around the UK over a period of four years used threatening, abusive and insulting language against ‘unbelievers’, these lectures being recorded and subsequently put on sale. The inflammatory language was therefore deliberately designed to reach a wider audience. He said it is permissible to use chemical weapons to kill unbelievers and sanctioned the use of nuclear weapons “in that country which is 100% unbelievers”. The jury found el-Faisal guilty of three counts of soliciting to murder and three of incitement to racial hatred for similar utterances against Jews.

If these are the criteria, there are quite a few American evangelists who had better keep their butts—or more precisely, their mouths—out of Britain—not to mention U.S. Congressman Tancredo.

Prayerful conclusions

If the "Incitement to Religious Hatred" portion of the British Patriot Act passes (which it almost certainly will), the Edinburgh Dungeon may continue to feature its "Satan's Grotto" because Satanism will be protected. (The Scottish church opposing the Dungeon had no problem with the torture per se.) On the other hand the various religions will be nominally free to damn as much of humanity to a fiery hell as they like—so long as it is government-approved and focused predominantly on gays, abortion-seekers and nonbelievers.

What the British government is really after is greater control over speech, and it is going to get it.

As for the Scottish church wanting to shut down the Edinburgh Dungeon, their best tactic might be to urge the release of the Abu Ghraib photos and videos currently withheld by the Pentagon in defiance of a court order. Once the British and American publics are treated to this entertainment, the torture of the Edinburgh Dungeon may seem a little stale, forcing it to close for lack of interest. Perhaps then we may be able to stop clucking about torture in the past and see what, if anything, we can do about torture in the present.