Religious Hatred

So, there is to be a vote on the Religious Hatred Bill today, but what is this going to give us? As far as I can see it is going to give us nothing that cannot be covered by existing legislation; that is apart from criminalising certain words! Yet again the little freedom of speech that we have/had is being eroded, this time in the name of curbing religious hatred. Now, please don’t get me wrong here, I am not advocating the proliferation or promulgation of religious hatred, not by any stretch of the imagination; however I am a bit puzzled by what this really means in everyday life. This legislation will mean that the individual is not allowed to incite religious hatred, a very laudable idea; but I see a flaw here, are the police in Glasgow going to have to arrest all of the fans coming out of a Celtic v Rangers derby because of songs and chants voiced on the terraces of such matches? I see this bill as being rather ill thought out, the government says that there are safeguards built in, but if we are talking religious hatred then the songs and chants at a Rangers/Celtic match are tantamount to the incitement of religious hatred and therefore fall foul of the bill. And this is just one example where I see difficulties with this criminalisation of language; and I think that it is only the thin end of a very thick wedge. It is simply another knee-jerk reaction by an inept, incompetent and morally bankrupt government; a reaction that is ill conceived, ill thought out and, in my opinion, totally unnecessary.