I don't have the same story as many others my age when it comes to how I got involved in the fight for free speech.

As a boy, I immigrated to New Zealand from Iran. Suffice to say, neither Iran nor its religious structures are commonly known for their defence of free speech.

At the Free Speech Union, I'm usually found looking after our busy inbox. But today, I want to share my concerns over what the Law Commission is considering, the serious implications it could have on your speech rights, and what we can do about it.  

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Inherent in our work defending free speech is the belief that words have incredible power. So, who should get to decide how we use this power? You, or the 'ever-trustworthy' government.

The Law Commission is considering amending our Human Rights Act to provide protections for people who are transgender, non-binary and people with innate variations of sex characteristics – a noble cause, right?

Well...

Despite their possibly compassionate intentions, I fear that these bureaucrats will harm the very people they are looking to protect, while simultaneously censoring those who have different perspectives.

They could do this by implementing laws that not only ban disagreement with gender theory but rather encourage advocacy for it in your children’s schools.

What if you were held legally liable in an employment context for not affirming a colleague's gender identity? Or as a school board of trustee member, or as a teacher, you were held liable for failing to create an ‘emotionally safe space’ for students by not affirming their gender identity?

The proposals in the Review could lead to this.

The reality is that many people are not able, in good conscience, to affirm someone's trans/non-binary identity for personal or religious convictions. If misgendering and dead-naming become legally recognised forms of discrimination and hate speech, then the future of free speech in our country will be left to question.

Ideology is reductive and simplistic. History shows it is a poor source of policy. 

In parts of the Middle East, we see fundamentalist religious ideology dominating political structures so much that the state has become a self-righteous and moralising force, keeping sinners in line and punishing those who dare to use the power of their words to express dissent.

Is that where the Law Commission wants us to go? Is our state becoming an ideologically captured, moralising, and censorial force for New Zealand society? Their endeavors seem to suggest so.

The issues they are dealing with are contentious; unlike other protections in the Human Rights Act, there is no mass agreement on gender identity – if anything, there is major disagreement.

If the Commission is not willing to allow us to disagree on this, what else are they willing to force us to accept?

My assumption is that if the law changes, those who disagree on both sides will disagree far more vehemently than they currently do. And those who oppose the ideology will do so with greater passion, and the already-tense arena of disagreement will become increasingly violent – all to the detriment of those they are wanting to protect.

But you cannot legislate away disagreement.

You can submit to the Law Commissioner in less than 5 minutes. 
Speak up now.

Lord Justice Sedley once said, “Freedom of speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative, provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.” Has the Commission forgotten this?

The only way we can create any positive outcome in these situations is to encourage discussion, not prohibit it, to encourage the civil articulation of our deeply held beliefs, to offend and be offended for the sake of truth.

Either we live in the false comfort of untruth, or we courageously live in offense and pursue truth – that's the choice before us. Truth or false comfort? 

Join your voice with ours, and urge the Law Commission not to censor Kiwis' speech.

Write a submission to the Law Commission using our easy, step-by-step guide here.

Talk soon,

Arian Tashakkori Operations Free Speech Union