Christianity A Crime in UK?

Here's an article entitled UK Preacher Jailed for Sharing His Faith, dated Friday, June 4, 2010 (though the story is from over a month previously); reading the title, what religion do you think the street preacher was preaching?

Basically, a Muslim Christian street preacher was discussing sins during a street sermon. He mentioned drunkenness, adultery, blasphemy... later on, police with a hidden camera asked him about homosexuality. He confirmed his belief that, according to the Bible, homosexuality was a sin. He was taken to jail.

"When I got up on my step ladder to preach, I never mentioned homosexual conduct," he said. "I mentioned a number of other sins like drunkenness, adultery and blasphemy, but I never once mentioned the sin of homosexuality while I was preaching."

He was later arrested and held overnight in a cell at the Cumbria Police station and was charged with a crime. McAlpine told CBN News he was in complete shock to find himself locked up simply for sharing his beliefs.

"I was shocked that I was taken off the street," he added. "I didn't expect to be taken to a prison cell that day. I went out to preach the Gospel and I was shocked that I found myself in a cell and my freedom taken away from me. Yet I had a wonderful peace from the Lord and I had my Bible."

[snip]

The police were unable to comment on the case.

"We would like to reassure the public that we respect, and are committed to upholding, the fundamental right to freedom of expression. We are just as committed to maintaining the peace and preventing people feeling alarmed or distressed by the actions of others in public places," Chief Superintendent Steve Johnson said in a written statement.

The Christian Institute helped McAlpine with his legal defence. Spokesman Simon Calvert said the police must be held responsible for their actions.

"The Cumbria Police can't just walk away from this," Calvert said. "They arrested and charged an innocent man for no other reason than he peacefully expressed his Christian beliefs and it's happened in other parts of the country too. So there's clearly a problem with the system and it has to be put right."

McAlpine along with the Christian Institute have considered his legal options to ensure that something like this won't happen again. But while many cases like this continue across the United Kingdom, Christians remain concerned that their ability to openly express their beliefs in the country remains under threat.

Here's the vid the police used as evidence:

The transcript, found at the link above:

Dale: We’re not out here to break any laws. We want to abide by the law. There isn’t any law against saying that them things are sins. There isn’t any law against that.

Police: Hello sir. What’ve you been saying, homophobic wise?

Dale: Well, homophobia is hatred towards homosexuals. That’s the definition of homophobia but I’m not a homophobia [sic]. I spoke to your officer earlier and he was upset that I was saying homosexuality was a sin – which is what the Bible says. And I affirm that’s what I say because that’s in the Bible. And there’s no law, there’s no law…

Police: Well there is.

Dale: No there isn’t.

Police: There is. Unfortunately, mate, it’s a breach of Section 5 of the Public Order Act.

Dale: It actually isn’t.

Police: Sir, it’s a…

Dale: We wouldn’t do that because if it was against the law, y’know. Lord Carey, was it Lord – the guy who passed that law in the Houses of Parliament recently – the free speech [inaudible].

Police: [inaudible] It protects free speech to a degree but [inaudible].

Dale’s friend: Actually, I certainly didn’t. These two gentlemen listened to probably all I’ve said. I certainly never mentioned homosexuality.

Police: Yeah, we know.

Dale: The only time I mentioned it was when I was talking to this gentleman here. When I was up on the steps preaching, I didn’t mention it. Even so, y’know, it still is not against the law.

Police: It is against the law. Listen, mate, we’re pretty sure. You’re under arrest for a racially aggravated Section 5 Public Order offence. You don’t have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

Dale: Fair enough.

Police: OK. Do you want to walk this way to our van?

No, it's not fair enough. They arrested him for a racially aggravated offense. Did he say anything about race??

Now, I wonder what would happen if that were an adherent of the Religion of Peace? Islam also considers homosexuality a sin, but whereas Jesus taught His followers to forgive, Mohammed taught his to kill, and death is the penalty for homosexuality under Islamic law. What would happen if it were some Pakistani mullah advocating killing homosexuals, the way mullahs advocate killing everyone else who opposes Islam?

What it all boils down to is the title of this post.

Freedom vs. Submission, and a Tea Party

Here are some interesting thoughts from MEMRI Video Clip #2480 - Yemeni-American Jihadi Cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki in First Interview with Al-Qaeda Media Calls on Muslim US Servicemen to Kill Fellow Soldiers (transcript) dated May 23, 2010:

Interviewer: You are accused of involvement in 14 cases [of terror], in the US, Canada, and Britain. Is there any truth in these allegations, which have been spread by the media, and what are the reasons for this onslaught?

Anwar Al-Awlaki: This onslaught is because I am a Muslim who calls to Islam. They are accusing me of incitement. Nidal Hasan, Umar Farouk, and the other cases that you mentioned – the common denominator between them is incitement. Incitement to what? Incitement to Jihad, and to the Islam revealed by Allah in the Koran and in the Sunna of His Prophet. That is the accusation. The Americans do not want an Islam that defends the causes of the Islamic nation, or an Islam that calls for Jihad, for the implementation of the shari'a, and for the Doctrine of Allegiance and Disavowal. These are gates of Islam that they do not want opened, and they do not want people to be called to them. They want an Islam that is American, liberal, democratic, peaceful, and civilized, as has been mentioned and promoted in some of their reports, for instance, in a report by the Rand Corporation. Today, [Islam] has jurisprudence of honor, which demands justice, as well as jurisprudence of ignominy and a culture of servility. A high-ranking CIA official says: If we are faced by a Mullah Omar, we will confront him with a Mullah Bradley... It's an American name.

[...]

This war over the hearts and minds of the Islamic world has reached its peak. Today, the US is trying to promote a false Islam, just as their forefathers falsified Christianity and Judaism. Now they want to falsify Islam – but the religion of Allah is safeguarded. Today, we have a jurisprudence of honor, which is promoted by some Islamic preachers and activists, like yourselves, in Al-Qaeda. Your discourse is an example of the jurisprudence of honor. Take, for instance, what Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri said to Obama. He said to him: "Mr. Obama, may Allah bring about the downfall of the US at the hands of the mujahideen. That way, we – along with the entire world – will find relief from your evil." This is an example of the discourse of honor.

Skipping down:

Interviewer: Do you support such operations, even though they target what the media calls "innocent civilians"?

Anwar Al-Awlaki: Yes. With regard to the issue of "civilians," this term has become prevalent these days, but I prefer to use the terms employed by our jurisprudents. They classify people as either combatants or non-combatants. A combatant is someone who bears arms – even if this is a woman. Non-combatants are people who do not take part in the war. The American people in its entirety takes part in the war, because they elected this administration, and they finance this war. In the recent elections, and in the previous ones, the American people had other options, and could have elected people who did not want war. Nevertheless, these candidates got nothing but a handful of votes. We should examine this issue from the perspective of Islamic law, and this settles the issue – is it permitted or forbidden? If the heroic mujahid brother Umar Farouk could have targeted hundreds of soldiers, that would have been wonderful. But we are talking about the realities of war.

[...]

For 50 years, an entire people – the Muslims in Palestine – has been strangled, with American aid, support, and weapons. Twenty years of siege and then occupation of Iraq, and now, the occupation of Afghanistan. After all this, no one should even ask us about targeting a bunch of Americans who would have been killed in an airplane. Our unsettled account with America includes, at the very least, one million women and children. I'm not even talking about the men. Our unsettled account with America, in women and children alone, has exceeded one million. Those who would have been killed in the plane are a drop in the ocean.

Anwar Al-Awlaki is very straight-forward about what he wants: dead Americans. He sees America as fundamentally opposed to Islam - and it is. Islamic law goes counter to the tenets upon which America was founded; Islamic law is unconstitutional. The only way for this guy's Islam to win is for the America we know to be destroyed. Even this socialized big-government Obamacare has to go for this guy's Islam to win.

Another comment Anwar Al-Awlaki made was about American freedom:

[US Muslim] organizations used to support the Jihad in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Chechnya, and in Palestine. I was there, in America, at that time. We used to call from the pulpits to everything in Islam: Jihad for the sake of Allah, the establishment of the Caliphate. Allegiance and Disavowal. We could speak freely. The freedom in America allowed us to say these things, and we had much more freedom than in many of the countries of the Islamic world.

Now, contrast what the Caliphate enjoys when preaching the destruction of America to what the Caliphate wants when someone dares to speak out against the subjugation planned for them by Islamic holy warriors. From GOP Rep. Defends Anti-Islam Tea Party Speaker, dated May 21, 2010:

Rep. Steven King (R-Iowa) has rejected calls by a Muslim rights organization to drop out of a Tennessee Tea Party convention this weekend because of the participation of an activist-blogger who's railed against Islam. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pressed Tea Party organizers to disinvite Pamela Geller, head of the group Stop the Islamization of America, and asked King to cancel his participation in the event if she remained on the program.

The Tea Partyists stuck to their guns, and Pamela Geller spoke. You can find part of the story of how that went in a post at Pamela's blog, Atlas Shrugs.

You will also find a link to Atlas Shrugs in my sidebar. When it comes to blogs, I link to different blogs for different reasons, not necessarily as an endorsement of what they say, or because I even like them. Though there is nothing in the sidebar to indicate this, Atlas Shrugs is a blog I proudly link to. Pamela Geller is smart and well-informed, and if we ignore what she has to say about Islam, we do so at our own risk.

As Pamela herself puts it:

I am not anti-Islam, I am pro-freedom. I am against Islamic supremacism and sharia law.

I now reiterate what I wrote in my previous post:

Only in the crucible of free debate can fallacies be burned away and the truth become known; anyone who seeks to limit the debate seeks to impose upon us a lie.

The choice, as I see it, is between freedom to speak the truth, and submission to a lie. Islam means "submission", so guess which side the Mohammedans must be on.

A Winner?

Details.

Only in the crucible of free debate can fallacies be burned away and the truth become known; anyone who seeks to limit the debate seeks to impose upon us a lie.