Rowan Atkinson campaigns to water down hate speech restrictions

I have no idea what to think of this.

Rowan Atkinson, the British funnyman best known for his roles in Blackadder and Mr. Bean is speaking out against a proposed law that seeks to criminalize anti-gay hate speech, saying that the law could make humor at the expense of gays illegal.

I'm inclined to be cynical. Here in the States, free speech is an argument against laws seeking to criminalize hate speech. When put under more scrutiny, those claims usually turn out to be disingenuous strawman arguments. It doesn't help that the article comes from a Conservative-leaning paper. On the other hand, I know free speech is different in the UK than it is in the USA, so I have no idea how to judge Atkinson's worries.

This isn't the first time a conservative British paper has suggested that "politically correct legislation" will undermine the arts. Novelist Anthony Horowitz wrote an op-ed column saying that he had a hard time writing interesting villains because he didn't want to offend underrepresented groups.

Based on Atkinson's recent work, he probably doesn't have to worry so much about ... not unless sticking French fries up your nose is some coded, homophobic signal that hasn't crossed the Atlantic yet.