Rowan Atkinson's
standing up against a cunning plan to stifle free speech in Great Britain.
Atkinson, who has led criticism of "hate speech" laws in previous years, criticized such laws in general: "The last thing that any academic, or cleric, or practitioner in creative writing wants to hear, is of police officers walking round with a tool box bulging with sanctions against speech and expression that 'could be useful one day'," he said.
The remark is occasioned by an effort to remove a conscience clause from a ban on homophobia.
The Government is expected to delete a free speech protection added last year to rein in the law against "incitement to homophobic hatred," which carries a maximum seven-year jail sentence. The protection reads: "For the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred."
Perhaps for these people the Renaissance was
something that happened to other people.
