Tony Miano
Tony Miano

American evangelist, Tony Miano, was arrested in Dundee Scotland, for mentioning homosexuality among a list of sexual sins.

The arrest, which took place yesterday, occurred on the grounds that Mr Miano allegedly used “homophobic language” during an open-air sermon.

The former police officer and chaplain with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was released on bail after seven hours. He was formally charged with the crime of breach of peace through ‘homophobic aggravation.” Mr. Miano must return to Scotland on 22 April to stand trial.

The trouble started when Mr. Miano was preaching about the various sins Jesus saves us from to lunchtime shoppers on the city’s high street. After receiving a complaint from a woman who said her son is gay, two police officers arrested Mr. Miano without asking him any questions and without explaining the reasoning behind the arrest.

Pastor Josh Williamson of the Craigie Reformed Baptist Church in Perth, was part of the same preaching team and witnessed the event. He commented, “Tony wasn’t focussing just on homosexual practice – it was about all sin. A woman was yelling at him and her friend noticed we were filming the preaching, so she ran up to me and tried to smash my camera.”

“The female officer saw we had a camera and lunged for it and then the male policeman grabbed it and threw it in the police van,” said Mr Williamson.

Mr. Miano’s sermon was caught on film. Below is a word-for-word transcript of what he was arrested for saying:

“My friends, the reality is, we are all going to stand before God to give account for our lives.
“And whether our sin is sexual in nature or not, if we have violated his law in any way – whether it is homosexuality, whether it is refusing to abstain from evil in the heterosexual community and we are lusting after people we are indulging in fornication, but even beyond that if we have so much as told one lie – God sees us as a violator of his law, God does not see us as good.”

In the video below, Mr Miano tells about his arrest and encourages Christian preachers throughout the world to stand strong.

Paul declared in 2 Timothy 2:25-26 that “the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”

This passage, and countless others, shows that believers not only have a responsibility to preach, but that they have a mandate to preach against specific sins. The fact that you can now get arrested for preaching against homosexuality does not change this reality. Pray that believers would take courage from Tony Miano’s stance and follow his example.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Why did the police officers grab the camera?, according to the law its not illegal to film anything or anyone on private or public land provided your not making a nuisance of yourself,or maybe the law in scotland is different, if these heavy handed police officers have broken the laws which they are ”supposed” to uphold then a complaint should be logged, although in the good old UK today that will fall on deaf ears

  2. These officers did not act according to due process. First of all, they are supposed to state why they are arresting the person, i.e., because they are suspected of a particular crime/violation etc. They should then request, politely and without heavy-handedness that the camera be handed over to them as evidence – certainly not grabbed and thrown into the police vehicle. Not only should a complaint be logged against the police but also against the person who phoned the police with an unwarranted complaint, hence wasting police time, and should be issued with a warning.

    Of course, it’s all ridiculous, but this is ‘gay’ obsessed, Christ-hating modern Scotland/UK, so what do we expect? Anyway, I wish Tony Miano God’s blessing for his stand for truth. You will have your reward.

  3. I agree that the camera should not have been taken in this way.
    Presumably this would never be categorised as “wasting police time”, because having arrived and seen it for themselves, the police themselves considered if worthwhile to take action, If it was merely an lone amateur standing reading from the Bible with no audience to speak of, to report that would be wasting police time.

    I have seen some of these American preachers in the street in the town where I live. I don’t know if this one was using a loudspeaker, but when they do that, they really dominate the area and it is unpleasant, particularly for people waiting in bus queues nearby. People don’t like being told that they are going to hell because they tell occasionally tell lies, and homosexuals particularly don’t like being condemned. so utterly and repeatedly. I have seen one epileptic told that he was being punished by God for Adam’s sins, and he didn’t like that at all, nor did the rest of the crowd (and it was a big crowd). They had requested a band of policemen to stand in front of them protecting them from the crowd, When they continued preaching after their permitted time, and the police went home, they started insulting Muslims. At that point they were obviously in real danger from the mainly white crowd, which was chanting “Racist, racist”. So they packed up and disappeared. Who was wasting police time ?

    Oh yes, they also said it was strange that none of the churches in our town were able to preach the Gospel like they could. They upset and offended absolutely everybody there — the police, and the Christians who at first were supporting them, and everybody else, in one way or another.

    I don’t know exactly what happened in Dundee, of course,

  4. Rox

    In no way do I wish to give the impression that I approve of all types of street preaching, particularly those that deign to single out people from the crowd, such as the individual with epilepsy (my own daughter has intractable epilepsy). However, there has to be a good reason for police to arrest anyone. A particular crime/violation has to be committed, and the police have to make it clear to the individual under arrest that they are being taken in for some reason, i.e. breech of the peace. The person making the complaint also should not be contacting the police to intervene in any situation unless they believe there is some genuine crime/violation taking place; hurt feelings in this case mean nothing – I could report hurt feelings every time I hear a blasphemy, because I find it offensive, but I don’t believe it warrants getting someone arrested for 8 hours. As for noise and crowds in such public assemblies, would you condemn gay pride marches and muslims gathering to protest as well? Your thoughts are really rather partial in that respect. There are many cards people play to drown out what they don’t like to hear; racist, islamophobic, homophobic, bigot, etc., when really it’s all about limiting free speech and lawful assembly.

    Christianity is a missionary faith, and its primary purpose is to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgement before a Holy God, and to preach Christ crucified as the only way of salvation. It will always be contentious and the world typically hates it, hence widespread persecution of Christians.

  5. The state should NOT be allowed to arrest anyone for speaking the Gospel publicly.

    That said, the very worst aspect of same sex marriage between males is that it entirely sexual and males making the public proclamation at a formal civil ceremony ceremony that they will honour each other with their own bodies is disgusting and degrading in the extreme.

    And the preacher stated very explicitly that homosexuality is a violation of God’s law. He did not state that it is in violation of British law, which could be considered homophobic, so on that basis he should NOT have been arrested.