Update 2 | How does the Christian Institute respond to an issue?

Institute Update Issue 2 - May 2002

How does The Christian Institute respond to an issue?

By Mike Judge

Supporters often want to know how we actually go about responding to an issue. Let us try to answer that by taking a brief look at the recent campaign against plans to introduce an ‘incitement to religious hatred’ offence.

The first thing that needs to be decided is whether to take up the issue. In this case, there was no doubt that a new ‘incitement’ offence would in fact be used against religious groups rather than to protect them. There was much opposition to the move from all quarters of the media and especially from some Muslim groups who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of the new law. The Government, however, pressed ahead. Few expected this, and so we had to respond quickly.

We looked into the exact wording of the proposed law and our legal staff analysed its potential consequences. We tried to imagine how the law could be used against Christians, because we knew there are those who would do so for real. We had to highlight every conceivable way this law could attack religious liberty. We produced hard-hitting scenarios which showed the reality of this law’s potential consequences.

Then we had to identify the Government’s arguments. This meant trawling through newspapers and Parliamentary debates. We asked: what is the Government saying to justify this new law? What are the strongest points? What are the weakest?

Once the Government’s arguments had been identified, we took them one-by-one and prepared counter-arguments. Then we supported those counter-arguments with accurate and thorough research findings. This included facts, figures, statistics, points of law and quotes from experts. All those things had to be found, analysed and checked. This took time, which was the one thing we had least of. But with a team of research staff we covered a lot of ground relatively quickly.

Once the analysis and research had been done, we then had to get the information into the public arena. We needed to inform our supporters, politicians and the media. We produced a point-by-point briefing on the issue. We condensed our work into a publication which was comprehensive yet readable.

Writing the text for the briefing was a painstaking process of drafting and redrafting until a final text was approved. We checked and double-checked all our facts and reference material. Not every argument was used, but we had to investigate the whole matter in order to be confident in what we said.

Then the publication had to be printed. In all, 5000 copies of the briefing were produced at a cost of £1200. The cost for mailing those briefings to supporters, politicians and the press was similar. The cost in staff time was considerable. The final briefing was the culmination of many hours of research, analysis and writing. Indeed, from start to finish, the campaign against the proposed ‘incitement’ law took 230 hours of staff time.

The briefing was quoted in the Lord’s debate by a senior Peer and from the feedback we have received, it is clear that our briefing was extensively circulated behind the scenes. In the end, the Government was forced to drop its plans. The work done by The Christian Institute and others went a long way to achieving this success.

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