Can J. K. Rowling destroy Scotland’s new anti-free-speech law with a strategic wave of a single wand?
The author of the Harry Potter and Cormoran Strike series has gotten into trouble. She defied the State by saying that men are men and women are women even when a member of one of these sexes
To some, the author’s statements are “hate” speech. Speech now prosecutable in Scotland, where
On April 1, 2024, legislation went into effect there making it a criminal offense to “stir up hate” against members of a protected group, including transgender individuals. This is a “crime” that can be punished by up to seven years in prison.
The law’s terms are encompassing
So far, Rowling has escaped arrest, though offering herself as the subject of a test case. After the law went into effect, she penned a series of posts declaring that various men who say they’re not men are in fact men: blatant “misgendering.”
“If what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested,” she wrote.
When the Scottish police declined, she added: “I trust that all women — irrespective of profile or financial means — will be treated equally under the law.
This trust is, I fear, misplaced. As long as the law exists, Rowling’s very visible defiance cannot protect everybody else who might be targeted under it.
Scotland needs more Harry Potters, er, heroes … to stand up to this terrible law.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly
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3 replies on “A Celebrity’s Defiance”
“a criminal offense to “stir up hate” against members of a protected group”?
So what group is not protected by this law? That suggests that some groups are empowered to stir up hate. And who gets to define ‘hate’? Animal Farm still lives in 2024.
Very fitting that this “law” took effect on April 1st.
At this stage, the Radcliffe is hitting the fan. Liberty of expression is everywhere abridged, and everywhere under threat of still greater suppression; but the Scottish Parliament is going to be humiliated in this instance.