Bye bye Boom Bye Bye?

Richard Smith pops a Guardian Music Blog onto the internet cautioning against making incitement to hatred on grounds of sexuality a crime:

It's also the legal equivalent of your mum saying she's going to go down your school to have a word with the bullies; all very nice and well-meaning, but totally counterproductive. A quick read of Eric D Nuzum's history of music censorship, Parental Advisory, should remind you how anyone who tries to ban a record ends up giving their target a cachet of rebel cool quicker than you can say "Relax, don't do it".

Really, Richard? You think that a law making this sort of hatred illegal would have the same effect as Mike Read banning Frankie Goes To Hollywood? You can't see a difference between banning a record because it's about sex, and banning a record because it calls for the murder of people because they're gay?

The broader point - that there's already a crime of incitement and the new proposal is making a well-meaning but ultimately confused attempt to criminalise some aspects of free speech - was also made by Christopher Biggins on Today earlier in the week. Discrimination and direct incitement are matters for the law to be involved in; I don't think Buju Banton should be given a platform to spout his bile from, but this should be a matter of morality and debate, and not one of legislation.