Many people have pointed out the absurdity of outlawing a human emotion – Hate. Apart from the fact that, like the opposite emotion -love, it is a word which is lost without its object. You have to define what is to hated and what is to be loved for it to be rooted in any meaningful reality. Of course, we know that the people who drafted the law were clearly not thinking about hatred of bad things like war or violence or cruelty or slavery or child abuse etc. it was hatred of people with certain innate characteristics. These categories could be defined but could also be enlarged and broadened to include many other groupings, who could be victims. The idea could also be expanded to include other undesirable human emotions such as greed, lust, anger, rage or vengeance.  But it is absurd, because who can tell what is in a person’s heart. Who can decide what it is I am thinking? Yet that is the direction that this move is taking.

The policeman who interviewed Harry Miller, a suspect in a “non-crime hate incident” reportedly said “I need to check your thinking”. He had clearly overstretched his arm as the courts later found in Millers’ favour, but the officer was simply following the logic of the thing. It’s easy to mock this of course, but it’s not difficult to see where it comes from and that those moving and creating the legislation are clearly on to something. For the reality is that actions follow words, which in turn follow the thoughts in our head. So, if you really want to get to the root of criminal behaviour, it has to start with thinking. Racist violence is often preceded by racist language and from racist thinking. Domestic abuse from misogyny, Adultery from lust, Murder from hatred of someone.  Evil comes not from outside but from inside the person. Jesus said that.  You don’t just steal something from the supermarket shelf or cheat on someone, if you hadn’t already cherished and embraced the desire in your heart. Then when we get the opportunity, we think we can get away with it and no one will know, we take it. It is only when we are found out, when we are exposed, that we come out with our regrets and remorse, with fake repentance and the disingenuous plea “I don’t know what came over me” “I don’t know how it happened” “It was an aberration totally out of character”. And many will believe it. But, if we examine our own hearts, we know the truth, that it was not an aberration, it was totally in character. This is what we are like. It’s called sin.

So, it is perfectly understandable that a government should make laws to root out bigotry and racism and all the evils of society by addressing what is in our heads. But there is a deep flaw in this. And there are two reasons why it is not in any human agency’s  gift to examine and direct what is in our minds. Human institutions have neither the qualifications nor the authority to do so. They are not qualified because no one knows what is in a person heart. Only God does. And they don’t have the authority, because they are under a higher authority and there’s is a limited one;  limited to their responsibility to govern, to protect against bullies from outside and within, to uphold justice, to punish evil actions and to defend the poor and the innocent. They are neither qualified nor have the authority to tamper with what the creator has ordered and any attempt to try is futile and will sooner or later end in failure. The Bolsheviks tried to abolish marriage and the family and to re-order the week into ten days, but that didn’t last long. In our day it is the re-defining of marriage, male and female, the beginning and the end of life and for some that two plus two could equal five. We know it will end in tears and the tragedy is that, while focusing on things out with our control and authority, we fail in the very things we are able to do. Witness the Scottish Government’s flirting with these things and their abysmal failure in just about everything else they touch.

But the ideology of progressivism is deep rooted and strong. It is also perfectly logical and reasonable because, If there is no God then we have to somehow take on his role. God is dead, long live humanity.

The same can be said of critical race theory with its dogma of whiteness – white privilege, white supremacy, white complicity, white equilibrium, white fragility and white denial.  Because if you seek to justify yourself, you are in denial. Despite your personal circumstances and background, despite how desperate or disadvantaged or poor you are, if you don’t see it, it is because you are blind to its reality. You are guilty, it seems by virtue of being born into a particular race. It almost sounds as if the principle has been borrowed from the traditional doctrine of original sin-  tainted and suffering under the sin of Adam. The difference with critical race theory is that it only applies to the sin of whiteness and there is no redemption, no salvation, only perpetual penance, continual sacrifices and reparations that will never be enough. 

So like progressivism, critical race theory and the canon of climate change, for that matter, there are truths that cannot be denied. Bad thoughts lead to bad actions, privileged is real and the abuse of creation will bring about terrible results, but all expose the stark reality that we cannot save ourselves. No amount of legislation, no amount of self-flagellation, no amount of personal sacrifice will do the trick. We need a saviour.