The controversial law came into force last week in Scotland, leading to a deluge of complaints made to police.
The Act consolidated previous hate crime legislation and created a new offence of stirring up hatred against certain protected characteristics – which had been on the statute book for race since 1986.
Throughout its passage in 2020 and 2021, the legislation stoked fears over its impact on free speech and garnered many prominent critics, including author JK Rowling who feared it could criminalise those who criticise the Scottish Government’s policy on gender recognition.
It's not illegal to be an asshole now
Ross Greer, Scottish Greens
Ms Rowling made a number of posts on the first day the law was in force misgendering a number of trans people, effectively challenging Police Scotland to charge her.
But Police Scotland did not take any action and said that Ms Rowling’s posts were “not assessed to be criminalâ€.
Speaking to the BBC Podlitical podcast, Mr Greer – a senior member of the Scottish Greens – said it had not been made illegal to be unpleasant or offensive.
“It’s not illegal to be an asshole now,†he said.
“It was not illegal to be an asshole before and for the last week it has still not been illegal to be an asshole.â€
But he added: “That doesn’t mean that you should be.â€
Mr Greer stressed that he was not specifically referring to the Harry Potter author, but was making a generalisation.
He continued: “Just because it is still legal to be offensive doesn’t mean you should go out of your way to be offensive.
“There are plenty of things that it’s not illegal to do, but that in a decent society we don’t generally encourage people to do.
“We should all be trying to be as pleasant and decent to each other as possible, whether the law allow for it or not.
“I think as a society we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than the criminal law.
“If the highest standard we can set for ourselves and each other is the criminal law – that’s an abysmally low standard.â€