Religious Speech, Hatred and Lgbt Rights: An International Human Rights Analysis

This book investigates the dynamics between international incitement prohibitions and international standards on freedom of religious speech, with a special focus on the potential incitement prohibitions for the protection of the rights of LGBT+ people. To that end, the book seeks to determine if and to what extent sexual orientation and gender identity are protected grounds under international anti-incitement law. Building on that analysis, the book also delves deeper into the particularly controversial and complex issue of religiously-motivated speech against LGBT+ people, a phenomenon engaging both religious speech rights and equality and other rights of LGBT+ people. Drawing on recent international law benchmarking in the area of incitement and complementing this with extensive comparative legal analysis, best practice lessons are presented on how to calibrate free religious expression and the protection of LGBT rights in the pluralist state. Among other findings, the present research rejects a sweeping a priori trump in the form of a ’scripture defence’ against incitement charges, but rather recommends a context-based risk assessment of speech acts potentially affecting the rights of LGBT+ people.

Jeroen Temperman is Professor of International Law and Religion and Head of the Department of International and European Union Law at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Religion & Human Rights (Brill/Nijhoff) and a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief. He has authored, among other books, Corporate Religious Freedom and the Rights of Others (The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, 2019), Religious Hatred and International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) and State-Religion Relationships and Human Rights Law (Leiden: Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, 2010) and edited Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) and The Lautsi Papers (Leiden: Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, 2012). Key publications further include articles published in Human Rights Quarterly, Oxford Journal on Law and Religion, Netherlands Quarterly on Human Rights, Religion & Human Rights and Annuaire Droit et Religion.