NEWTON'S OPTIC:Hate crimes are a sign of the North's growing sophistication, writes NEWTON EMERSON
WHO CAN deny the extent of Northern Ireland's political progress now that the First Minister's wife is under police investigation for a hate crime?
Stormont Assembly member Iris Robinson described homosexuality as an "abomination" on Radio Ulster last week, provoking much more outrage than when she said the same thing on the same programme a week before.
Despite making two attempts to ignite this controversy while her husband assumes power, there is no suggestion that Mrs Robinson is just playing a clever game with Ian Paisley's Christian constituency. Experts agree that unionists are far too stupid to be motivated by anything other than prejudice. Instead, the PSNI is now investigating two separate hate crime complaints against Mrs Robinson. Hate crimes are sometimes also referred to as "thought crimes", although only by abominable racists.
The remarkable sophistication of the concept of a hate crime has quickly eclipsed such outdated concepts as property crime, violent crime and ordinary decent crime.
It may even have eclipsed the concept of crime altogether, according to the hate crime section of the PSNI's website, which promises to "record any incident . . . whether it amounts to a crime or not".
Whenever the point of hate crime inquiries is questioned, a press officer is guaranteed to explain that the police have a statutory duty to investigate all complaints. This is especially guaranteed in the case of the PSNI, which spends more per capita on press officers than any other force in the UK.
Confirmation of the PSNI's statutory duty to investigate all complaints will be a great relief to anyone who ever suspected that the PSNI does nothing of the sort. Such suspicions occasionally arise due to the PSNI's 20 per cent clear-up rate, 8 per cent murder clear-up rate and 16 per cent detection rate, which are all the lowest of any force in the UK.
There is also the small matter of 3,268 unsolved murders from the Troubles. The PSNI says that its Historical Enquiries Team is making slow progress with this because it has to inspect the contents of an entire warehouse full of files.
Under these circumstances, it is entirely understandable that the PSNI might prefer to inspect the contents of people's heads.
Mrs Robinson appeared on Radio Ulster again this Monday to insist that she has every right to express her views. In fact, she may only have this right until the end of the year. The Freedom of Expression section of Northern Ireland's new draft Bill of Rights proposes banning "advocacy of hatred" and "incitement to unlawful discrimination, hostility or violence".
Supporters of this proposal can only hope that it does not leave the PSNI with an entire warehouse full of the contents of people's heads.
Mrs Robinson's alleged hate crime has caused particular anger by coming after a homophobic attack on a young man near Belfast. Naturally, there have been no reported arrests for the actual attack as those involved were apparently "youths" and are thus almost certainly victims of something themselves. They may even be victims of the very message advocated by people like Mrs Robinson.
If the citizens of Northern Ireland have learned anything on the long road to progressive inclusivity, it is that gangs of youths rarely attack anyone without the biblical endorsement of a middle-aged woman.