{"id":7964,"date":"2010-03-30T17:40:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T21:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com\/?p=7964"},"modified":"2010-03-30T17:40:41","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T21:40:41","slug":"peter-tatchell-defends-christians-right-to-criticise-homosexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/peter-tatchell-defends-christians-right-to-criticise-homosexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Tatchell defends Christian\u2019s right to criticise homosexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The law in the UK seems to have abandoned common sense<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has defended a Christian street preacher fined \u00a31,000 for saying that homosexuality is a sin.<\/p>\n

Baptist Shawn Holes was taken from a busy shopping street in a police van and locked in a cell for the night.<\/p>\n

He appeared in court the next day charged with ‘uttering homophobic remarks’ in a breach of the peace that prosecutors said was ‘aggravated by religious prejudice’.<\/p>\n

Last night Mr Tatchell attacked the fine as ‘heavy-handed’ and ‘totally disproportionate’.<\/p>\n

He said: ‘The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive.<\/p>\n

‘Just as people should have the right to criticise religion, people of faith should have the right to criticise homosexuality. Only incitements to violence should be illegal.’<\/p>\n

Mr Holes, an American preacher who was travelling around Britain with a dozen colleagues, was arrested in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, on March 18.<\/p>\n

After discussing general Christian topics, the married father-of-two, a former wedding photographer, was fielding questions from the crowd.<\/p>\n

When asked about his views on gays, Mr Holes, 47, from Lake Placid in New York State, said he told questioners: ‘Homosexuals deserve the wrath of God – and so do all other sinners – and they are going to a place called Hell.’<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Crown Office – the Scottish prosecution service – said: ‘We take all crimes of prejudice extremely seriously.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Peter Tatchell<\/a>\u2019s view of a Christian repeating what the Bible says about homosexuality is more tolerant than that of the police, it seems fairly obvious that something has gone badly wrong with British justice.<\/p>\n

The Scottish prosecution service takes all crimes of prejudice extremely seriously<\/em> except its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The law in the UK seems to have abandoned common sense: Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has defended a Christian street preacher fined \u00a31,000 for saying that homosexuality is a sin. Baptist Shawn Holes was taken from a busy shopping … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[2167],"class_list":["post-7964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homosexuality","tag-homosexuality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}