Submission on Civil Anti-Vilification and Harms-Based Speech VIC

Excerpt:

3. Freedom for Faith agrees with and endorses the submission made today by the Institute for Civil Society.

4. In particular, we support the view that a “hate speech” law (as opposed to existing vilification laws) sets a bad precedent for free speech on controversial topics, including on matters as to which citizens of faith would have strong views. The proposal risks conflating “hate speech” with “speech that a person hates”.

5. As the Institute for Civil Society states:

The expression of views which are offensive to some persons with a relevant
attribute but do not incite third persons to hate such persons is not conduct which
is prohibited by vilification laws. The expression of such views might cause “harm”
in the different sense of offence or hurt to the persons with the attribute but that
is not the type of “harm” which justifies a legal restriction on freedom of expression
under vilification laws nor should it justify legal restriction of freedom of expression
under this proposed “hate speech” law.
[…]
In short, it will be a broad prohibition with an uncertain application, the threat of
which will chill free speech because speakers can never be confident that some
hearer with an attribute may not perceive the speech as “hateful” of them.

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