Nicholas Barrett

Why shouldn’t we execute homosexuals? I know it seems like a stupid and offensive line of inquiry, but if you can think of just one reason why we shouldn’t hang people for having a particular sexuality then you’ve just though of a reason why three Muslims from Derby shouldn’t have been imprisoned last week.

One of the men, Ihjaz Ali, is set to spend two years in prison for handing out leaflets in Derby that called for the execution of homosexuals. While its difficult to feel any kind of empathy for a man with such vile and draconian opinions I do have serious reservations about locking a person up for having an honest opinion. After all freedom of expression goes both ways so when you censor or punish an idea not only are you denying the freedom of the proponent to espouse his or her belief but you are simultaneously denying the public the freedom of being exposed to that idea.

You might think that in a case as revoltingly homophobic and deranged as this one that the publics freedom of inquiry is irrelevant and immaterial, however I would argue the exact opposite because I wouldn’t want Britain to be tolerant merely because tolerance has become a popular consensus. That just wouldn’t be good enough because the popular consensus has been wrong so many times in the past and has historically acted as a harbour of regressive delusions. I want us to confidently believe in tolerance because we have all considered and understood its importance. That’s why we should be open to confrontation, because nothing makes us consider an idea more then the moment when we first have to defend it from an ideological antagonist.

Would you be ready to defend, with evidence, the ideals you held true if were suddenly called on to defend them? If you met a white supremacist who told you that black people had lower IQ’s and the holocaust was a hoax, would you know how to debunk him? How about a young earth creationist preaching about a 5000-year-old planet or an anti-semite who blamed a Jewish conspiracy for the attacks on the World Trade Centre? Would you know what to say? It is vital to know why you believe your own perception of reality because democracy and reason have never flourished in a society that simply believes what it’s told to.

I don’t want to see Ihjaz Ali behind bars, when he could be much more useful to us as an example of ignorance, I would rather see him scrutinised in a public forum or limp away from Question Time like Nick Griffin in 2009.

Some would understandably argue that he doesn’t deserve a platform, however I don’t want to live in a country that has political prisoners. I don’t want to live in Saudi Arabia, a country that would lock you up for handing out leaflets that promoted gay rights and might even go as far as executing you for practicing homosexuality. The British government is happy to sell everything from fighter jets to riot control vehicles to defend this deeply homophobic regime while incarcerating anyone who echo’s their ideology over here.

It is my belief that sexual equality is a strong idea that doesn’t need to be protected by prison bars. If our government is of the opinion that the public are incapable of regarding a leaflet as ridiculously crude and contemptible as the one distributed in Derby without morphing into a bigoted bloodthirsty lynch mob, we might have cause for concern.