Kerby Anderson

J.K. Rowling is best known as the Harry Potter author, but she is also beginning to be known as a political activist. She lives in Scotland and has been leading the charge against Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act.

The bill criminalizes “stirring up hatred” in such a way that “a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive, or insulting.” There need not be any specific victim of the crime.

In order to draw attention to this authoritarian bill, she posted this statement. “I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”

She won’t be arrested, but it is likely that someone will be arrested sometime in the future for this abusive hate crime law. It is also ironic that when the law was first introduced, it was put forward as an attempt to amend an 1837 blasphemy law. Some critics have suggested that it merely swaps out one blasphemy law about religion for another blasphemy law about political correctness.

Most of the hate crime laws in this country or in other countries were drafted to address the problem of racism. This law clearly wants to expand the focus from racism to transgenderism. When J.K. Rowling heard she would not be arrested, she responded: “I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women — irrespective of profile or financial means — will be treated equally under the law.”

Hate crime laws have always been a bad idea, but this is even worse. It criminalizes the commonsense observation about the difference between women and trans women.