Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill says it would be a “terrible idea” to make misogyny a hate crime in the United Kingdom.
The House of Lords are voting this week on whether to make misogyny a hate crime, as part of a set of amendments aimed at improving protection for women.
“I’m very worried whenever government, and whenever officialdom interferes into the mind itself so that potentially a crime could be punished more harshly if it was motivated by a particular ideology,” Mr O’Neill said.
“That’s when we get to the realm of punishing thought itself.
“I don’t think that’s a good way to challenge backward belief systems and it gives rise to a pretty authoritarian system.”
