Heard of Shawn Holes? You should have, but through no fault of yours probably haven’t. He is an American Baptist preacher aged 47 who visited Glasgow recently.
He was preaching in a shopping centre there when a number of people came up to him and asked him his views on homosexuality. He replied that he considered it was a sin.
As if they were waiting for this, police leapt out and arrested him. He was locked in a cell and charged with breaching the peace.
As his parents in America were in very bad health (hospice inmates) and he wanted to get back to them as soon as possible, he pleaded guilty to the charge without contesting it.
Would you like to guess what the penalty was – for expressing an opinion? He was fined £1,000 plus time in the cells.
Leading homosexual rights activist Peter Thatchell commented: “The conviction and £1,000 must be condemned an attack on free speech.
“Mr Holes should not be insulting people. He should be challenged and people should protest against his intolerance. However, in a democratic, free society it is wrong to prosecute him. Criminalisation is not appropriate.
“The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive. Only incitements to violence should be illegal.
“Mr Holes’ £1,000 fine is totally disproportionate. Even people who commit robberies and violent assaults sometimes get off with lighter penalties. This prosecution was heavy-handed and an inappropriate use of the law.
“If I had known about this prosecution in advance, I would have gone to court to defend Mr Holes’ right to freedom of expression and to urge that the charges against him be dropped. Even though I strongly disagree with his views on homosexuality, if he had decided to appeal against either the conviction or the sentence, I would have supported him.”
This is more than political correctness, which, however much it has been abused as a concept recently, was originally based on an idea of keeping the peace and sparing people’s feelings. The actual subject for which Mr Holes was prosecuted is, in fact, more or less irrelevant. It could have been any of a list of things.
Further, of course, the subjects which are censored are highly selective. Islamists in Britain have been allowed to picket Westminster Cathedral and intimidate worshippers with placards calling for the beheading of the Pope and gloating over 9/11 without a single arrest being made. This, apparently, does not count as a “hate crime.”
I said at the beginning of this that you probably hadn’t heard of Mr Holes. That is part of the real point.
Outrages against freedom of speech regarding certain areas of opinion have become so common that they are no longer news-worthy.
Further, the victims appear to be virtually unsupported. After this case there is no point in pretending that freedom of speech exists in Britain at present. Other Anglomorph countries have similar problems.
The administration of a Canadian University recently banned well-known conservative commentator Anne Coulter from speaking there – to be precise, they wrote her a letter before she was due to appear, giving a list of topics she might or might not speak on. This was an effective ban because naturally she refused to speak at all under such conditions.