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from Theological Issues
UK Christian Faces Court For Handing Out
Bible Verse Leaflets At Gay Rally
September 11, 2006 -
Stephen Green was arrested by South Wales police for handing out Bible quotation leaflets on homosexuality at a gay Mardi Gras event in Cardiff.
Green faced charges on September 6 of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior against gays by distributing the leaflets. The leaflets quoted verses about homosexuality from the 1611 Kings James version of the Bible.
Church of England officials have called the arrest of Green an "onslaught on freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression."
The arrest of Green is the latest in a police initiative against those who are critical of homosexual conduct. According to The Daily Mail, the police warned author Lynette Burrows that she was responsible for a "homophobic incident" for suggesting on the BBC that gays did not make ideal adoptive parents.
In Lancashire, Christian pensioners Joe and Helen Roberts were interrogated at their home for 80 minutes to two officers about their "homophobic views."
The charges against Stephen Green are based upon the Public Order Act of 1986, which prohibits "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior within the haring or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby."
According to Green: "I am astonished that South Wales Police have a special unit dedicated to silencing those who disagree with homosexuality."
In a defense of Green, writer Melanie Phillips wrote a lengthy article in the September 7 issue of The Daily Mail. Headlined, "How Britain is turning Christianity into a crime," Phillips noted: "The Bible is the moral code that underpins our civilization. Yet the logic of the police action against Mr. Green surely leads ultimately to the inescapable conclusion that the Bible itself is 'hate speech' and must be banned. This bizarre state of affairs has arisen thanks to our human rights culture which automatically champions minorities against the majority. ... The problem for Christianity is that is holds that homosexuality is wrong. This, however, it is no longer allowed to say because it treats a minority practice as sinful."
Phillips continued: "Christianity is fast becoming the creed that dare not speak its name. It is being written out of the national script by ideologues seeking to hasten its disappearance."
Additional Reading: Ethical/Theological Issues;
The "Privilege of Speech" in a "Pleasantly Authoritarian Country": How Canada's Judiciary Allowed Laws
Proscribing Discourse Critical of Homosexuality to Trump Free Speech
and Religious Liberty.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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