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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I have also made it clear that the amendment would be appropriate for the whole of society. The wording of amendment No. 1 is far milder than the form of words used in section 29J, which I quoted earlier and which the House was happy to insert in the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. Indeed, it is not just religious people who are worried that clause 107 could restrict free speech. Peter Tatchell, the homosexual rights activist, has argued that existing laws are adequate to protect homosexual people, and he opposes the proposed new offence. Journalists Matthew Parris and Iain Dale, themselves gay men, also oppose the new offence on free speech grounds. I could list the many occasions on which leading Church people have been visited, telephoned or placed under scrutiny by the police for sermons that they have given in their churches. That is what people are worried about. For example, Mario Conti, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, was reported to the police in 2006 for a sermon in which he asserted that civil partnerships undermined marriage. Ministers may say that amendment No. 1 is unnecessary, but the Churches whose members and leaders may be on the receiving end of malicious complaints under the new law do not agree. If the words used in the amendment do not do any harm to the Government's intentions for this offence, I do not see why the Government should resist it.