Joe and Helen Roberts are celebrating an out of court settlement following being questioned by the police about their views on homosexuality:
Helen and Joe Roberts, of Fleetwood, Lancashire, were questioned after they tried to display Christian literature next to gay rights’ leaflets.
Being something of an absolutist on free speech, (say what you please so long as you are prepared to accept the consequences) I see nothing wrong with their desire to display leaflets. What’s good for the goose and all that.
The couple had asked for Christian literature to be displayed alongside gay rights’ literature and “were astonished” when Wyre Borough Council refused.
During a call to the council to complain Mrs Roberts expressed her religious belief that homosexual practice was morally wrong.
That led to the council informing the police, who then sent two officers to the couple’s home to interrogate them on their views.
The expression “what the fuck?” springs to mind here. This is, is it not, a free country? One where people may freely express their views? Okay, okay, so the question is rhetorical. Of course not while petty council officials are prepared to report people to the police for expressing views that are verboten in Blair’s brave new world.
So, while I disagree with the Roberts’ views, I defend absolutely their right to express them. The settlement was right and proper – even if ten grand was a little over the top.
These cretinous ‘officials’ should be named and shamed. It’s about time these mid-range apparatchiks got seriously questioned about what the hell they think they are doing for a living. I’ll bet there ain’t anything in the job description which includes reporting such comments to the cops and asking them to ‘investigate’. Morons!
As a white, middle-class teenage son of Lancashire, I dread being associated with people like this. However, what the police did was clearly wrong. In any democracy where freedom and liberty is respected, people must be able to communicate views like this. Arguing that it should be illegal to disagree with legislation is frankly insane and damaging to liberty. Religious psychos could go out and say that rapists should be praised and given medals – what do you think would happen to them? In any decent society they’d be absolutely mauled for it. But that’s the nature of free speech. I firmly believe in the “give ’em enough rope” theory. Otherwise, we are not a democracy. Bigotry must be accommodated in any free society – otherwise we are little better than a tinpot authoritarian state.
Hence my absolutist comment. I want to hear what bigots have to say. If we cannot hear that, how can we judge the merits of their position? Forcing bigotry underground simply adds a patina of excitement to it; it provides evidence that there is “something in it” else why are the authorities so scared that they ban it?
A free society is one that allows all speech to be heard; even the repugnant. If it has any merit, then the utterer will be able to back it up. If not, it will be seen for the sham that it is.