Seventh-day Adventists in the United Kingdom welcomed the defeat of a proposed “Racial and Religious Hatred Bill,” which lost twice in the House of Commons. While opposing racism and religious bias, Adventists were among those concerned that the legislation’s restrictions would have damaged reasonable religious expression, such as speech outlining the differences between Christianity and other faiths.

“The [Seventh-day Adventist] Church ... also expressed to Members of Parliament their concerns about the danger to religious liberty and freedom of expression that the Bill in its original form would pose,” said Pastor Cecil Perry, president of the Adventist Church in Britain. “Malicious litigants or persons of strong religious views could, in a court of law, misconstrue that the Seventh-day Adventist interpretation and public teaching on, say, Revelation 13 was an incitement to religious hatred. Strong public statements on matters of morality or sexual orientation could be deemed offensive.”

He added, “The verbal guarantees given by the [British] government that only where intent was proven in the incitement to religious hatred, legal action would follow, did not assure opponents.”

According to Perry, who also directs public affairs and religious liberty efforts for the British church, it is unfortunate that the actions of some extremists—who actually sow religious and racial hatred—have threatened the rights of groups and individuals.

However, he said, “The Seventh-day Adventist Church believes that whereas the state has a right to protect its citizens and make legislation to preserve law and order; in matters of religion and the exercise of the dictates of conscience the individual has inalienable rights but not without responsible obligations.  The citizen must remember that he has an obligation not to abuse his freedom of expression in a way to jeopardize the rights of others.”

Along with Adventists, others in Britain expressed concern over the potential impact of the legislation as written. Evangelical Christians also worried about their rights to religious expression and to protest against Muslim attacks on Christians, while satirists and entertainers such as Rowan Atkinson, a well-known comic, feared prosecution over telling jokes about religion. According to the Times of London, a diverse coalition of groups including the National Secular Society and the Barnabas Fund, along with the Christian Institute and the Evangelical Alliance, worked with dissenting Members of Parliament to block the legislation’s original language.

Such concerns are not limited to the United Kingdom, where Islam is said to be the fastest-growing religion. During the past few days, protests and rioting have broken out in several Middle East nations over cartoons that allegedly insulted Islam published in Danish newspapers. Supporting free speech, other newspapers in Europe have reprinted the cartoons, sparking additional protests.

“As defenders of religious freedom we can understand the concern of any government about hate speech,” said Dr. John Graz, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty department director for the Seventh-day Adventist world church. “Religious organizations and churches have the right to disagree and non-religious people have also the right to disagree with religious ones. It would be more productive to develop a culture of respect of differences in a context of freedom of expression than to pass a restrictive law that may be wrongly implemented.”