The Konservative Kristian Kriminalizers have their knickers in knots over this:
A city court in Erlangen, Bavaria, gave Lutheran Pastor Johannes Lerle a one year jail sentence for the “crime” of comparing abortion to the Nazi holocaust. . . .Pastor Johannes Lerle compared the annual murder of 150,000 babies through abortion in Germany to the murder of thousands of innocent Jews in Auschwitz. The court, which consisted of no jury and a single judge, ruled that this statement made Lerle a holocaust denier. . . .On 14 June, Judge Erda Erdenhofner convicted Lerle of a particular crime known as “volksverhetzung”, or “incitement of the people”.
A person is guilty of Volksverhetzung” title=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung\”>Volksverhetzung” target=”_blank”>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung”>Volksverhetzung when she or he says or publishes something that
in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public peace:
1. incites hatred against segments of the population or calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them; or
2. assaults the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning, or defaming segments of the population[1]
OK, so we understand why Germany would have such a law. But a year in the choky?
The German Catholic news service kreuz.net reports that the reason for the severity of the punishment is in part due to the pastor’s six previous convictions, which have seen the pastor serve two prison terms lasting eight and a half months in total. He was formerly imprisoned for calling abortionists and their aides “child murderers.”
Oh.
Gee, it’s too bad this guy, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, didn’t shoot his mouth off in Germany. Remember what he said?
‘It is an unspeakable crime… I urge politicians to have no truck with the evil trade of abortion… It is the equivalent of… two Dunblane massacres a day’
The Dunblane Massacre you’ll recall was the murder of 16 schoolchildren and their teacher in Scotland.
When a fetus fetishist’s hyperbole turns into hate, it sure would be good to be able to slap a Volksverhetzung upside his head.
Hate speech laws are a bad, bad idea. They are a serious breach of freedom of expression, and entirely prone to political whims and interpretation.
Although many on the left think that hate speech laws won’t ever apply to them, they may be in for a nasty surprize one day. The best way to protect your own freedom of expression is to protect those whose opinions you loath.
All laws are enforced at the point of a gun. It’s a pity some people want to win debates through force.