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J.K. Rowling bewitches Scotland: Author incapacitates hate crime law

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J.K. Rowling bewitches Scotland

Author incapacitates hate crime law

  • National Post
  • 11 Apr 2024
  • Amy Hamm
A protester holds a cut-out of Harry Potter author and outspoken women’s rights advocate J.K. Rowling during a rally against the Hate Crime and Public Order Act in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Saturday.

J.K. Rowling is making headlines again: that quarrelsome, difficult woman — who just can’t for the life of her keep her mouth shut about women’s rights — has neutered new hate crime legislation that came into effect in Scotland on April 1. Using only her words! Is any further proof required that the woman is a bona fide witch?

Scotland’s new law threatens up to seven years in prison for “stirring up hatred” against identifiable groups, including (not limited to) the religious, disabled, or transgender. Females, however, receive no protections under this new law. Critics — most notably Rowling — called hooey on its professed purpose and argued that what the law actually intends to do is to limit freedom of speech. And in particular, speech defending the sex-based rights of women. On X (formerly Twitter), Rowling was clear as a bell on this:

“In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex,” she wrote.

Scotland’s new law did not pass in a vacuum: it is but one example of similar legislation that is being pushed across the West, including in Britain, Ireland, and Canada. In the U.S., attempts at such laws have been thwarted by America’s First Amendment. Sadly, us common law citizens have no such equivalent protection. Instead, we are left hoping that sports stars or benevolent billionaires like JK Rowling will not only push back, but in doing so will also remind us all that our freedoms are precious and must be vigilantly protected. We need troublemakers like her to flout draconian legislation.

And flout she did: Rowling posted a provocative thread with examples of Scottish transwomen who’ve done heinous things — threatened violence against women; been convicted of rape (including of minors), indecent exposure, or possession of child pornography — and then ended up in women’s prisons; bragged about stealing and wearing their sister’s underwear; and replaced women in sports or professional roles, including as head of one Scottish rape crisis centre. Rowling even made jokes along the way — such audacity — concluding with a taunt for Scottish police to arrest her: “I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”

More than 3,000 complaints were lodged with Scottish police the first day the new law came into effect. India Willoughby, one of the transwomen called out in Rowling’s thread, was quick to cry “hate crime.” Police — arrest that witch! Alas, Rowling continues to speak, and not from the inside of a prison cell. Scottish police released a statement on April 2 that, despite numerous public complaints about her words, no action would be taken. And just like that, Rowling gelded her country’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act. Her powerful spell apparently affected U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as well, leading him to profess that no one should be criminalized for stating biological facts.

Which is, after all, what Rowling did; the point of Rowling’s provocation, clearly lost on many people, is that each of the persons she exposed is a biological male. It’s not that they identify as transgender that she takes issue with — though they all do — it’s that they are biological males whose feelings and desires have been placed ahead of women’s dignity and safety. In order to take a stand against convicted double rapist Isla Bryson residing inside of a women’s prison, one must be able to point out that Bryson is not a female, and poses an enormous safety risk to incarcerated women. To do so is not a condemnation of transwomen; it is a condemnation of Bryson and the absurd laws that allow “her” to opt out of going to male prison.

Facts and objective reality might sound hurtful to some, but they are indisputably not “hate.” It is essential that we can all speak to biological facts without being criminalized or imprisoned for doing so. And Rowling just granted permission for every man and woman in Scotland to speak the truth. What remains to be seen, however, is if police will apply the law equally and refuse to punish the average citizen for sharing the same verboten (at least to gender activists) views. On this point, Rowling issued another provocation to Scottish police. Upon the news that she was being spared arrest and prosecution — or burning at the stake — she said: “I trust that all women — irrespective of profile or financial means — will be treated equally under the law.”

Let’s hope so. Across the pond, us Canadians face the prospect of similar legislation being enacted. Like Scotland’s “hate crime” act, the Trudeau government’s Online Harms Bill — headed for a second reading in the House of Commons — also seeks to censor and possibly imprison outspoken, anti-establishment citizens.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a powerful witch like Rowling to smite our unjust laws. Here, it is going to require a collective effort to thwart Canada’s totalitarian creep. Ladies, get your broomsticks ready.

ACROSS THE POND, US CANADIANS FACE THE PROSPECT OF SIMILAR LEGISLATION.

Article Name:J.K. Rowling bewitches Scotland

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Author:Amy hamm

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Critics slam Scotland’s new hate speech law as an attack on freedom

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JK Rowling says law is ‘mother of all April Fools’ jokes’ http://cafe.nfshost.com/?p=9546

Critics slam Scotland’s new hate speech law as an attack on freedom

JK Rowling says law is ‘mother of all April Fools’ jokes’

By Michael Lee Fox News

Published April 1, 2024 1:34pm EDT

Scotland’s controversial new hate speech law went into effect Monday despite fierce backlash from critics.

“Scotland continues to infringe upon the right of her citizens to speak freely. This bill will force police to investigate those who ‘misgender’ someone online,” Thomas Corbett-Dillon, a former adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, told Fox News Digital. “In a country riddled by knife crime, and with one of the lowest life expectancies in Europe, you would think the Scottish Government has more important things to focus on, but no, they are desperate to pander to an extremely small group of men in dresses who feel offended when they are not referred to as women.”

The comments come as Scotland officially announced that its hate crime law aimed at providing “greater protection for victims and communities” came into force Monday, creating new criminal offenses for those who use “threatening or abusive” behavior intended to “stir up hatred based on prejudice toward characteristics including age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics,” according to a press release by the Scottish government.

The new law warns that people can be prosecuted for sharing offensive rhetoric across multiple media platforms, which includes “displaying, publishing or distributing the material e.g. on a sign; on the internet through websites, blogs, podcasts, social media etc., either directly, or by forwarding or repeating material that originates from a third party; through printed media such as magazine publications or leaflets, etc. Giving, sending, showing or playing the material to another person e.g. through online streaming, by email, playing a video, through public performance of a play, etc.

People convicted of running afoul of the new laws could face fines and even a prison sentence of up to seven years, with proponents arguing the legislation will send “a strong and clear message to victims, perpetrators, communities and to wider society that offences motivated by prejudice will be treated seriously and will not be tolerated.”

But the legislation has also been widely panned by critics, with renowned author J.K. Rowling describing the law as “ludicrous” in social media posts last month.

“If you genuinely imagine I’d delete posts calling a man a man, so as not to be prosecuted under this ludicrous law, stand by for the mother of all April Fools’ jokes,” Rowling, a frequent critic of transgender ideology, said on X.

Corbett-Dillon pointed to Rowling, noting that the Harry Potter author could be one of those targeted under the new legislation. “This law could lead to renowned Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling being arrested because she refuses to call trans people ‘She’ online. This new law does nothing to protect women, or to stop men from entering into female sports competitions, or men entering into women’s bathrooms,” Corbet-Dillon said. “Trans people have become a ‘protected community’ in Scotland, but women remain unprotected.”

The Scottish government has defended the law, with Minister for Victims and Community Safety Siobhian Brown arguing that the country is “building safer communities that live free from hatred and prejudice.”

“We know that the impact on those on the receiving end of physical, verbal or online attacks can be traumatic and life-changing. This legislation is an essential element of our wider approach to tackling that harm,” Brown said in the release.

Brown also argued that there were protections for free speech built into the legislation, noting the new offenses would have a “higher threshold for criminality” than old laws that have been in place since 1986. But critics have still questioned those protections, with Faculty of Advocates’ Criminal Bar Association President Tony Lenehan worrying that the law could target journalists, comedians, debaters and dramatists, in comments to BBC last month.

Those claims were pushed back on by Scotland’s national police, who denied that the agency would proactively “target actors, comedians, or any other people or groups.”Nevertheless, Corbet-Dillon argued that the Scottish government should instead focus its attention on protecting free speech.

“The trans community continue to destroy women’s rights in their desperate pursuit to receive affirmation of their gender delusions,” Corbet-Dillon said. “Scotland, and England, both urgently need to enshrine freedom of speech into their laws.”