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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

My hon. Friend is right. Of course, one of the problems is that we are dealing with an atmosphere in which quite a lot of people do not really believe that there is much to choose between various religions, that one should not therefore get too hot under the collar and that the only thing that really matters is that people should be extremely nice and tolerant to other people. That is their problem, and it is why, when I stated the truth about the history of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a number of Labour Members thought that I was being scandalous in telling the truth. That is, of course, hurtful, but it happens to be true. That is the difficulty that we are dealing with in the Bill. I am one of those people who did not change religion, but who changed denomination, and I must tell the House that prejudices by no means disappeared—my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) will agree—but 100 years ago, much of what could be said about Muslims and the like would have been said about Catholics in this country. We solve these problems not by protecting people, but by arguing the case and making people understand the truth. That is the nature of these matters. I have never agreed with the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley). I believe that his teachings and attitudes are so far from the Christian religion that I find it hard even to put them in that context, but I would defend his right to attack Catholics in the tough way he has done, because that is the only way in which people feel free in a free society to show why such things matter to them. In a sense, I prefer those things to matter to him enough for him to insult my faith, my belief and what is most important to me to stopping him; because in stopping him, I would dehumanise him and reduce his ability to be himself in our society. That is a crucial part of freedom. Freedom allows him and his friends to shout at me when I march through Walsingham, and to shout at me the things that hurt most. When we choose a religion, we choose something that may well be more important to us than anything else on earth. Therefore, I have to put up with him, but I do so because that is what freedom is about; it is not putting up with people who argue with us about things that do not really matter to us or anyone else.