(...)   Why is it that so many people resent religion and turn against it? Surely it is because of its coercive force, its tendency to mistake the worldly power of its priests and mullahs for justified zeal for the truth. It is not God who turns people away, but what people do in the name of God. If a law against religious hatred is passed, even when blessed by St David Blunkett, the natural consequence will be a rise in the hatred of religion.

(...)   Particularly hatred of Islam. The BNP website describes Islam in the hands of some of its adherents as "less a religion and more a magnet for psychopaths and a machine for conquest". If a law says they can't say that, the BNP will, in the minds of many, be proved right. On Tuesday, Mr Blunkett said that it would be illegal to claim that "Muslims are a threat to Britain". People already censor themselves through fear of Muslim reaction to mockery - I don't suppose even brave, incontinent, foul-mouthed Paul Abbott would write a comedy for the start of Ramadan showing Mohammed downloading dubious images from the internet. If the law criminalises such activity, the scope for resentment is huge.

(...)   Iqbal Sacranie, of the mainstream Muslim Council of Britain, wants the new law because any "defamation of the character of the prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him)" is a "direct insult and abuse of the Muslim community".

(...)   Where does all this come from? Not, I fear, from the right, if misapplied, desire for different faiths to live at peace. Incitement to violence, after all, is already an offence, and so it should be. No, the pressure is chiefly from Muslims. If we want to understand its context, we should look at what happens in Muslim societies.

(...)   According to Muslim law, believers who reject or insult Islam have no rights. Apostasy is punishable by death. In Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, death is the penalty for those who convert from Islam to Christianity. In Pakistan, the blasphemy law prescribes death for anyone who, even accidentally, defiles the name of Mohammed. In a religion which, unlike Christianity, has no idea of a God who himself suffers humiliation, all insult must be avenged if the honour of God is to be upheld.

(...)   Under Islam, Christians and Jews, born into their religion, have slightly more rights than apostates. They are dhimmis, second-class citizens who must pay the jiyza, a sort of poll tax, because of their beliefs. Their life is hard. In Saudi, they cannot worship in public at all, or be ministered to by clergy even in private. In Egypt, no Christian university is permitted. In Iran, Christians cannot say their liturgy in the national language. In almost all Muslim countries, they are there on sufferance and, increasingly, because of radical Islamism, not even on that.

(...)   The ancient plurality of the region is vanishing. Tens of thousands are fleeing the Muslim world, and in some countries - Sudan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast - large numbers die, on both sides. In Iraq, the intimidation of Christians is enormous. Five churches have suffered bomb attacks this year. Christians in Mosul have received letters saying that one member of each family will be killed to punish women who do not wear the headscarf. According to Dr Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund, a charity working for persecuted Christians, "Christians in Iraq are isolated and vulnerable this Christmas, and feel that they have been let down, even betrayed, by their fellow Christians in the West, especially the Church leadership".

(...)   The push for a religious hatred law here is an attempt to advance the legal privilege that Muslims claim for Islam. True, Muslim leaders are happy that the same protection should be extended to other religions in this country. But to a modern liberal society which claims the freedom to attack all beliefs, this should be no comfort. It says a good deal about the quality of churchmen and politicians in Britain that the most prominent opponent of the Bill is Mr Bean. The Archbishop of Canterbury is more or less invisible. The Government is on the side of repression.  Read the op-ed...

It is a fact that while Muslims in predominantly Muslim countries have little concern for violence, hatred, intolerance, and persecution of non-Muslims, this to the point of total disregard for any rights of Christians and Jews, the display indignation and accuse non-Muslims of  discrimination and religious hatred of Islam.  It is okay to criticize and make jokes about Christians and Jews, but you can't make jokes or criticize Islam or Mohammed. The Imam pushing this bill says that any  "defamation of the character of the prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him)" is a "direct insult and abuse of the Muslim community."

Here we have the religion of absolute intolerance of other faiths, indeed faiths that are more historically well-founded and older than Islam, claiming persecution in a country  of Western society that has provided most of these Muslims safe-haven from the intolerance, ruthlessness, cruelty, and person-abuse from which they have fled. Is this not the ultimate in irony? The very act on the part of the Imam of claiming religious intolerance is itself a mockery of that religion, a joke, a not-very-funny joke that is simply a ruse to provide Islam a special status above other religions. This is the agenda of Islam.

Islam deserves no special status.  It is clearly an agenda of radical Islam to cause Christians and Jews to become second-class citizens. Moderate Muslims should have the same rights of Christians and Jews, but not more rights or status. Radical Muslims with hidden agendas need to be identified, outed, and exposed for what they are, and as importantly what their evil intentions mean for the continuance of civilized society. Making laws to prevent people from saying things such as, "Islam is less a religion and more a magnet for psychopaths and a machine for conquest" is simply giving radical Islamists a tool to enhance their goal of world dominance, and that tool is the suppression of truth.