Should Americans travel to Scotland? Well, it’s a beautiful country, but there’s a problem – their new hate speech law. If you say anything that offends a leftist, then you might get charged with hate speech. Maybe you said some controversial things online. If anyone on the left recognizes you in Scotland, they might file a complaint for your past hate speech. The penalty is up to 7 years in jail.

Here’s an article from Christian Today to explain:

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, [was] passed three years ago. It was the brainchild of the then justice secretary for the Scottish government, Humza Yousaf. Yousaf is now the Scottish First Minister and his bill is about to become law on April 1st.

[…]The problem with the bill is that it does not clearly define what ‘stirring up hatred’ means… the subjective feeling of a perceived victim, or of a policeman, could be enough to have you accused of a hate crime – one which carries a sentence of up to seven years. Take for example JK Rowling. If she tweets that a man cannot become a woman, she could be arrested for hate crime. Same for a Christian preacher who says that he does not believe that Muhammad is a prophet or a teacher who says they believe marriage is between a man and a woman.

The Scottish police have no time for real crimes, their priority is investigating you for hate speech:

The police in Scotland have said they will investigate every report of hate crime, despite having recently announced that they would not be investigating every case of ‘low level’ crime, including apparently some cases of theft!

The law will be used to target Christians and conservatives:

In an astonishing statement they give an example of the kind of people who commit hate crimes as those with “deep-rooted feelings of being socially and economically disadvantaged, combined with ideas about white-male entitlement”.

[…]Now we have the State creating a two-tier justice system where some groups are afforded ‘protected’ status and others are attacked.

[…]This Act will pervade through all of Scottish society. Even children are to be targeted. School handbooks now explain that all hate crimes should be reported to the police. Journalist Jim Spence wrote in the Courier that Scotland is about to become a “two-tier society” where “some folk are given protection by the law from some kinds of hate crimes, while others will simply have to suck up abuse.” For example, “while it will be an offence to stir up hate against trans folk”, it “won’t break the law to stir up hate against women”, because astonishingly under this Act sex is not a protected characteristic.

Anyone can report you and get you into trouble:

The police are to set up Third Party Reporting Centres throughout Scotland where you can go and ‘clipe’ (a Scots word for snitch or tell-tale) on anyone.

[…]The Herald reported on police training which encouraged officers to go after anyone who produces material deemed ‘threatening and abusive’. You could be prosecuted for a negative portrayal of a trans person in a play, for example.

[…]If you repeat a joke on the internet which someone in the ‘protected’ characteristic finds offensive, you could be guilty of a hate crime.

And as if that were not extreme enough, you could be reported for expressing ‘hate’ in your own home.

This part is key – anything you say or write in other countries that can be read about in Scotland will be grounds for arrest and imprisonment for “hate speech”:

The law holds that anything that can be read in Scotland is to be considered as published in Scotland.

Let’s look at a couple of articles from earlier this year, that show who is likely to be targeted by the Scottish Police. Surprise! It’s Christians and conservatives.

An article from the ADF explains how free speech is regulated in Scotland:

The police force… issued a warning notice to [Christian leader, Dia Moodley, a Bristol-based pastor and father of four], who has engaged in occasional street evangelism for the past five years, which forbade him from, inter alia, “passing comments on any other religion or comparing them to Christianity” and “passing comments on beliefs held by Atheists or those who believe in evolution”.

[…]In addition to forbidding criticism of religions other than Christianity, the warning notice further encroached on Moodley’s right to freedom of expression by banning him from “delivering a sermon or religious address at a time or place that has not had prior consent and approval of Avon & Somerset Constabulary.”

Here’s another example of free speech that offended the secular left – except it wasn’t even speech at all:

The charitable volunteer who was arrested for praying silently in a controversial “buffer zones” case in Birmingham will today testify to Holyrood about her experience of being prosecuted for a “thoughtcrime”.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was seen being arrested on a viral video last winter when she said she “might be praying inside [her] head”. She was charged with “engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users” within the buffer zone of an abortion clinic – despite the clinic having been closed.

For the secular left in Scotland, freedom of expression is not important at all. This legislation allows people to punish Christians and conservatives, if they just feel that our free speech is offensive. It’s not a safe place to visit.