Are these churches some sort of closed membership establishments?

If these pastors believe in their message and are inviting anyone to attend and listen to their sermons, why would they be opposed to sharing the contents? Is there supposed to be something secretive about it that I'm not seeing?

Bit of a trolly post but still.

Not advocating restriction of freedom. I'm advocating freedom for all.

The freedom not to be harassed, intimidated or discriminated against.

So you can't speak poorly of religion ever again, freedom and all that.

The internet is different imo. It's an authority of it's own. Each site has it's rules and if you don't like the rules of a particular site you don't have to visit it.

In fact this website has those rules against harassment, discrimination etc. and if I break them I get punished for it - same as anyone.


But there is a difference between criticism and hate-speech. As an example from our hate speech laws -

Situation 1 -

On 20 April 2010, police arrested Dale McAlpine, a Christian preacher, of Workington in Cumbria, for saying that homosexual conduct was a sin. On 14 May 2010, the Crown decided not to prosecute McAlpine. Later still the police apologised to McAlpine for arresting him at all, and paid him several thousand pounds compensation.

Situation 2 -

On 2 September 2006, Stephen Green was arrested in Cardiff for distributing pamphlets which called sexual activity between members of the same sex a sin. On 28 September 2006, the Crown advised Cardiff Magistrates Court that it would not proceed with the prosecution

Situation 3 -

On 13 October 2001, Harry Hammond, an evangelist, was arrested and charged under section 5 of the Public Order Act (1986) because he had displayed to people in Bournemouth a large sign bearing the words "Jesus Gives Peace, Jesus is Alive, Stop Immorality, Stop Homosexuality, Stop Lesbianism, Jesus is Lord". In April 2002, a magistrate convicted Hammond, fined him £300, and ordered him to pay costs of £395.

In the first two examples the defendant is only expressing a religious belief. This is fine. Saying something is sinful does not equate to an incitement of discrimination outside of the reach of their religious sect as sin is a religious concept. In the third the defendant used inflammatory language - implying homosexuality was immoral. Morality is a non-religious concept and to imply someone is immoral due to their sexual orientation is discriminatory and an incitement to harassment, violence and other acts against the freedom of those with that sexual orientation. Telling people to 'stop homosexuality' as another incitement to action. His words are an incitement to breach of the peace.

In general I think our courts do a good job of weeding out genuine hatespeech from concerned religious people and overall I'm extremely happy with how our laws are implemented.

This post was edited by Scaly on Oct 18 2014 09:30pm

He got fined for that? Wow Euros are pussies, I see worse than that on billboards.

Where you say pussy I say more appreciative of people's right to live free of harassment or discrimination based on race, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

hmm, and I always thought "you're rights end where my feelings begin" was a joke...

Depends on the context.

Trying really hard not to but can't help it... your*

#pathologicalgrammarnazi

This post was edited by Scaly on Oct 18 2014 09:42pm

Glad you have such prudent justification for your beliefs.

edit: who gets to decide which groups cannot be the subject of "hate-speech"?

This post was edited by Cellmat on Oct 18 2014 09:44pm

Not sure if insult or compliment...

thanks I think?

This post was edited by Scaly on Oct 18 2014 09:49pm