Whether it should be a criminal offence to incite religious as well as racial hatred is a tricky one for Marxists. Roger Welch discusses the issues. On the one hand, in the words of Trotsky, as Marxists we are dialectical materialists and consequently irreconcilable atheists, and as such practice and defend the right to criticise and mock all religions irrespective of who we offend.
On the other hand, in a socialist let alone capitalist society we defend the right of individuals to hold and practice religious beliefs.
Moreover, in the current climate of Islamophobia one of the strengths of most of the British far left, in comparison say with much of the French left, is our realisation that we must defend the right Islamic women to wear the hijab, and we oppose state, school and workplace bans.
(Equally, we defend the right of women from Muslim communities to dress however they please, even if doing so offends members of their communities who are strict Muslims.)
The problem with the Blair Government's proposals is that whatever they say about the sole aim of the proposed law being to clamp down on the racists, as the case with all law, it is open to interpretation by judges and this generally has the potential for reactionary consequences.
Therefore, critics of the proposed law are right in warning that, for example, artists, comedians and indeed socialist publications could end up being prosecuted for attacking or ridiculing religion.
It is well known that the Public Order Act of 1936 was brought in to deal with Mosley's Fascists but it was actually used by the police to attack Irish Republican marches in the 1970s.
Similarly, the new law could just as much be used against the left as against the BNP and other Nazi organisations.
This is one reason why anti-fascists should generally oppose state bans on Nazi marches (and why the early Anti-Nazi League was wrong to support such bans); the other main reason being that reliance on the state actually demobilises anti-fascist activists.
Laws on religious hatred are likely to have the same result as the blasphemy laws -providing the religious right with the basis for attacking progressive forces.
Remember Mary Whitehouse's prosecution of Gay News in the 1970s for publishing a poem containing Lines about sodomy and fellatio on the body of Christ.
Those who attack the blasphemy laws as being discriminatory as they only 'protect Christianity are right, but the answer of course is to abolish these laws not to extend them to other religions.
However, the above does not mean that we should oppose the fact that inciting racial hatred is a crime. Readers of this paper will have been glad to see the likes of Griffin and Tyndall prosecuted earlier this year - the only scandal being that they were not sent down for a good length of time.
Bizarrely, it may well be the Liberals who have got it right. If there is to be a law it should be based around making it an offence to incite racial hatred by using religion as a code.
However, any such law should also be accompanied by the repeal of the blasphemy, obscenity and any other laws which in the name of respecting religious sensitivities actually suppress the legitimate democratic right to offend.