It is necessary. It has been made necessary. This is about making people aware that ideas do not get special protection just because they are people's beliefs, and the only reason those ideas even need protection is because they're mad. Even secularists and atheists have been buying into this, and it's all nonsense, and it is how religions have defended themselves for so long. That's the intellectual issue.
The other issue is that of free speech. We have to make it clear that threats of violence, actual violence or legal action as opposed to meeting on the intellectual battlefield is not a valid tactic, will not cause us to cow away from our rights and views in fear and will lead to a massive backfire.
And any sensible religious person who stands by those rights and doesn't want to be offended in this way any more will stand by us too, and even participate.
It's not just religion. Libel laws in Britain presume guilt until innocence is proven, and libel tourism is such a problem that US congress actually passed a law protecting US citizens from being sued under British law. The British Chiropractic Association sued Dr Simon Singh for writing that they promote bogus treatments (ie chiropractic for infant cholic, infections and asthma) rather than respond with evidence that their treatments work (which they didn't have). It cost him thousands of pounds, but was unsuccessful, and also resulted in a massive backlash, which I am proud to have been a part of. 500 complaints and a serious of counter lawsuits for false advertising against individual and organised chiropractors led to the BCA recommending its members take down their websites, all of which promised efficacy of their bogus treatments. Legal action instead of defending bad ideas is not valid! And it is tantamount to an admission of ineptitude. This case is single handedly responsible for bringing changes in British libel laws to the table and creating and powering the campaign for libel reform.
This is what we can do when we actually stand up for ourselves and demand some fucking sanity.
__________________
| (• ◡•)| (❍ᴥ❍ʋ)
|