Christians, religious groups as well as comedians celebrated on the evening of Oct. 25th, as the government’s proposed Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Lords.

|TOP|The Bill has been proposed by the government to outlaw incitement to religious hatred; however it has been widely criticised and condemned as going too far.

House of Lords’ peers voted by a majority of 149 to support a cross-bench move to implement freedom of speech safeguards into the proposals.

Opponents to the Bill have been hugely diverse, from the Evangelical Alliance and Christian Party, to comedian Rowan Atkinson and various Secular groups have all condemned the Bill as being drawn too widely and have expressed concerns that it could outlaw criticisms of beliefs.

Home Office Minister Lady Scotland also stated that she was already looking at ways to overcome the divide of opinions on the Bill. In addition, Lord Hunt has said he would be willing to sit down with ministers to try and improve the proposals, however, he still forced the Lords vote to test the degree of resistance to the current proposals.

Earlier this month on Oct. 11th thousands of Christians gathered outside the Houses of Parliament in a protest organised by a Christian coalition, against the proposed Religious Hatred Bill.

Rev Katei Kirby, the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance (ACEA) Chief Executive told, "It affects everyone so deeply. This is not just about doctrine. This is not even about theological opposition. This is about our basic freedom to speak and to preach."

"It affects people's freedom to discuss and to critique anything because it might upset or offend somebody else and that is very serious."

|QUOTE|Revealing the width of the opposition to the bill, the National Secular Society also took part in the demonstration. Vice-president Terry Sanderson said: "We are coming at it from a completely different angle from the Christians. They are looking at the restrictions on their right to evangelise. We are looking at the restrictions on our being about to criticise religion per se so we can make common cause with them on this."

"I think this is an indicator to the government of just how wide the opposition is,” Sanderson told the BBC.

In addition, last week a group of opponents to the Bill, including former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, and comedian Rowan Atkinson suggested a series of amendments.

The new proposals call for insurances in the Bill that nobody is found guilty of a religious hate crime unless it is proved that they intended to stir up hatred. They said only “threatening words” should be banned by the Bill, and not those that are simply abusive or insulting.

The Home Office did say after the Lords defeat that it would not accept the Tory and Liberal Democrat proposals, which were also backed by some Labour peers, because they could make it almost impossible for courts to convict under the law.

However, Charles Clarke is expected to amend his plans for the law after the heavy defeat on the government last night.