(LifeSiteNews) — A growing number of public figures are criticizing Ireland’s proposed “anti-hate speech” bill, including Twitter CEO Elon Musk and political commentator Donald Trump Jr.
“Massive attack on freedom of speech,” Musk, 51, said of the legislation last week. “It’s insane what’s happening in the ‘free world,’” exclaimed Trump. Psychologist Jordan Peterson has also decried the proposal.
It’s insane what’s happening in the “free world” https://t.co/BXEJoR1ios
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 30, 2023
On Wednesday, April 26, Ireland’s Dáil – the lower chamber of Parliament – passed the bill by a vote of 110-14. Officially titled The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Act 2022, it is expected to pass the Senate later this month, where progressives hold a large majority.
Among other things, the bill strengthens a 1989 law to ensure legal protections for gender identity and sexual orientation. More specifically, it places heavy restrictions on “any intentional or reckless communication or behavior that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or persons because they are associated with a protected characteristic.”
Critics contend that the bill goes too far, and that it could result in the Catholic Church coming under fire from the government simply for defending its teachings on human sexuality and family life.
“As written, the law states that you can be prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned just for possessing material that could conceivably – in the mind of some functionary – be considered hateful if somebody else saw it,” Irish media outlet GRIPT has reported. “And if you don’t want to be convicted, you would need to prove that you did not intend to share it with anyone else.”
Niall McConnell, leader of Síol na hÉireann, a Catholic nationalist movement that publishes The Irish Patriot, expressed similar concerns.
“The ‘hate speech’ law has nothing to do with free speech. It is about silencing anyone in Ireland who criticizes the regime on abortion, mass immigration, or LGBT propaganda,” McConnell told LifeSiteNews.
While the bill has broad political support, some Irish lawmakers have sounded the alarm over the scope of the proposed law, with Senator Rónán Mullen accusing the legislation of paving the way for the prosecution of “thought” crimes.
Awaiting Seanad debate on flawed Hate Bill that (1) doesn’t define hate, (2) seems to penalise ‘thought crimes’ and (3) gives legal force to mad new definition of ‘gender’. Where are the civil liberties people, @ICCLtweet, @_IHREC, and @fiannafailparty @FineGael – all captured? https://t.co/tMO5c3LUhy
— Senator Rónán Mullen (@RonanMullen) April 30, 2023
For Musk, this is not the first time he has clashed with European efforts to stifle speech. In October of 2022, Thierry Breton, the European Union’s commissioner for the internal market, declared that Twitter would have to “fly by our rules” when it comes to permitted speech. Ireland’s left-wing president Michael D. Higgins called Musk’s purchasing of the platform a “form of dictatorship.” Twitter’s European headquarters are currently located in Dublin.
In an interview with a hostile BBC reporter last month, Musk was accused of allowing “hate speech” to go unabated on the platform. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Musk forcefully responded after the journalist failed to provide one example of hateful content.
The international outrage over the impending law comes just one month after U.S. President Joe Biden visited Ireland. Among his many stops was the famous Our Lady of Knock Shrine that commemorates an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St. John the Apostle in County Mayo in 1879. Catholics criticized the shrine’s rector, Fr. Richard Gibbons, for welcoming Biden with open arms given his decades-long support for public policies antithetical to infallible Church teaching. A group of Catholics even prayed the rosary after his visit in reparation for the scandal he caused. Ireland voted to legalize abortion in mid-2018.
On December 8, 2020, Catholic clergyman Giacomo Ballini conducted a public exorcism of Ireland’s Dáil as well as of the Taoiseach’s Office. Hundreds of traditional Catholics were in attendance. “It is your duty as Catholics, as Irish, to pray for your rulers, for their conversion, so that they may accomplish their duty, that is, to lead us home to heaven,” he said at the time. “Whatever else they do that does not lead us to heaven is an act of tyranny.”