Christians gathered in front of the Pakistan High Commission this morning before handing in a petition to 10 Downing Street calling for a suspension of foreign aid to Pakistan until persecution of Christians stops.
The protest and witness was organised by the British Pakistani Christian Association and began at 11am in London’s Lowndes Square outside the Pakistani High Commission for a worship service .
There was a one minute silence for Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistan minister for minorities who was shot dead by gunmen on 2nd March last year for calling for the repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which is regularly used by Muslims to settle scores against their Christian neighbours.
Pakistan High Commission, Lowdnes Square, London
Bhatti’s death followed that of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who had also opposed the law, and was shot dead by a renegade Islamist bodyguard.
A Christian woman, Asia Bibi, is still in prison in Pakistan after being sentenced to death for blasphemy. Her crime was to ask a Muslim neighbour during a religious argument, ‘Christ died for me; what did Muhammed ever do for you?’
The protest today called for the release of Asia Bibi, as well as the repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy law.
Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistan Christian Association, said: ‘The blasphemy laws in the Pakistan Penal Code need to be reformed so that they do not provide an opportunity to settle personal vendettas or to oppress Pakistani Christians and churches.’
Speakers at the witness outside Downing Street included Stuart Windsor of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Andre Minichello-Williams of Christian Concern, Alan Craig from Christian People’s Alliance, Gareth Wallace, Public Affairs Advisor of the Salvation Army, Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice and Martin Mawyer from the US Christian Action Network.
PRAY: That President Zardawi of Pakistan will respond to international calls for Asia Bibi to be released. There is a story around that he wants to release her, but that the Supreme Court of Pakistan has blocked the move until all legal process has finished, which could take months if not years. Meanwhile this determined young woman’s children need their mother.
WRITE TO: The Pakistani High Commissioner, His Excellency Wajid Shamsul Hasan at Pakistan High Commission, 35 Lowndes Square , LONDON , SW1X 9JN . Respectfully demand that Asia Bibi be released. Ask His Excellency to forward your demand to the President of Pakistan. Address him as “Your Excellency” and end “Yours faithfully.”
ALSO write to your MP and ask what representations the British Government has made to the government of Pakistan about Asia Bibi’s case.
ASK your MP to sign Andrew Stephenson’s Early Day Motion (EDM 2807) which ‘… notes that theUK gives significant aid to nations such as Pakistan where many minority communities suffer injustice under the blasphemy laws,
‘and calls on the Government to ensure that such aid is not used indiscriminately to perpetuate the resultant inequality, and in particular that it is does not facilitate educational material and teaching that denigrates and slanders minority religions and communities.’
Stephen Green congratulates Raj Bhachoo after his case was dismissed
Christian Voice Press Release – 19.00 hrs Wednesday 7th March 2012
Christian ‘Not Guilty’ in Stonewall email case
Stonewall witness fails to show
A Christian had a malicious communication case against him for sending a strongly-worded email to the Stonewall lobby group dismissed this afternoon when the only prosecution witness failed to turn up.
Raj Bhachoo was prosecuted after sending an email not just warning Stonewall of the fires of hell but linking homosexuality to child sexual abuse. But Stonewall’s Information Officer, Louise Kelly, did not appear and the prosecution case – they could not even produce evidence of the email in question – collapsed in her absence.
Stephen Green congratulates Raj Bhachoo after his case was dismissed this afternoon
The case was heard at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court this afternoon, and Christian Voice National Director Stephen Green had agreed to attend as an expert witness.
Stephen Green said after the case:
‘Raj Bhachoo certainly expressed himself in a robust way, but Stonewall will be the first to champion freedom of expression for their own side. They called me a ‘bigot’ and shortlisted me for a mock award last year, but I am grown-up enough not to go flying down to the police station.
‘I agreed to appear as an expert witness on Raj’s behalf, to show (a) that the word ‘queer’ is no longer a pejorative term amongst homosexuals, (b) that homosexual men have a greater tendency to commit sexual offences against children than heterosexual men and (c) that Stonewall are themselves fond of abusing their opponents. But with no case to answer, my evidence was not needed.’
The verdict marks the end of a nine-month ordeal for Raj, who was refused a not guilty plea last year in the same court and had to apply to the Crown Court for a retrial. By the grace of God his application was successful. Raj came to the attention of Christian Voice late last year when he telephoned for some leaflets against Tesco’s £30,000 support of Gay Pride to give out at his local store.
Born into a Sikh family, Raj became a Christian 8 years ago and is a staunch supporter of the Authorised Version of the Bible, which fed his early walk to faith.
Raj joined Christian Voice then told us about the Stonewall case. No other Christian group would support him, but National Director Stephen Green was appalled by the miscarriage of justice and found a criminal lawyer to represent him. Stonewall thought they could bully our brother, but when it came to it, they lacked the courage even to press their case.
Stephen Green concluded: ‘Thank God that justice has at last been done for our brother in Christ.’
For further information, phone Stephen Green on 07931 490050.
Land Address for Stephen Green and the Christian Voice office:
Wernlwyd, Pen-y-bont, CARMARTHEN, SA33 6QN
01994 484544 / 07931 490050 https://www.christianvoice.org.uk/
By now all Christian Voice members should have received the January edition of our monthly newsletter. In it we have given an update of the horrendous situation in North Korea, where Christians are treated more severely than in any other nation on earth.
Kang Chol-Hwan came from one of the many Korean families who had come there from Japan in the mid 20th century. Throughout the 1950s there was a large contingent of Koreans living in Japan who had fled to the island to escape the horrors of the Korean war. These refugees had a good life in Japan. Many of them held lucrative jobs, and they were surrounded by friends and family who had also immigrated to the island. Yet many of these Koreans decided to return home to start a life for themselves in the communist North.
These Korean refugees in Japan had been listening with eagerness to news of the revolutionary struggle occurring back in the north of their homeland. They heard how the “people’s struggle” had culminated in the establishment of The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under the faithful leadership of Kim Il-sung (1912–1994).
Reports continued to flood into Japan through the communist organizations about what a paradise North Korea was becoming. While there were some dissenting voices, warning that North Korea was far from being a communist utopia, the pro-North Korean political groups in Japan dismissed these warnings as anti-communist propaganda.
Thus it was that throughout the late 50s, thousands of Korean families living in Japan decided to immigrate back to their homeland. Leaving behind friends, family and wealth, tens of thousands took the journey, almost ecstatic to be part of Kim Il-sung’s “Paradise on Earth.”
Those who were left behind in Japan waited anxiously to receive news from their family and friends. Often they were met with only silence, or else letters with an unclear meaning. Assuming this must mean things were fine, many other Koreans sailed over.
What the returning Koreans stepped ashore, what they found was not a communist paradise but a prison. Some new arrivals who were loyal to communism were arrested immediately upon arrival, never knowing why and spending the little that remained of their lives in utter confusion and despair. Most were allowed to integrate into North Korean society (little better than a prison itself), but only after the wealth they had brought over from Japan had been systematically confiscated.
Kang Chol-Hwan, author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang, was born into a family whose grandparents were among these immigrants. Kang’s his grandparents’ stepped ashore on North Korean soil, one of his uncles recalled seeing several Koreans who had immigrated a few weeks earlier come up to some of the immigrants and say, “What happened? We sent our friends and family letters warning people not to come! Why didn’t your family listen?” The reality is that their letters had never been allowed to reach Japan.
After listening to this ominous exchange, Kang’s uncle looked around him. “It was like the city was dead – the strangest atmosphere” he recalled. “The people all looked so shabby and aimless in their wandering. There was a feeling of deep sadness in the air, and no movement betrayed the slightest hint of spontaneity.”
By the time Kang’s grandparents realized their mistake, it was too late. They would never be allowed to go back to Japan.
Kang’s parents and grandparents actually had it good. They were allowed to live in the capital city, Pyongyang, and because they had brought over so much wealth, they were favoured by the party leaders. Kang’s grandfather was even able to keep a Volvo he had brought over from Japan, in which he took his children and grandchildren on drives in the country. (Every outing had to be authorized, usually requiring a hansom bribe to a party bureaucrat).
Moreover, because his grandfather worked in food distribution, there was always plenty to eat. Since Kang had never experienced his family’s other life in Japan (his father married in 1967, after the family had already immigrated) he had nothing with which to compare and led a genuinely happy childhood, or as happy as one can realistically expect to be in that totalitarian state.
The trouble began in 1977 when Kang was nine and his grandfather simply disappeared. No one was ever told what he had done, but it was supposed that someone must have reported him for being disloyal. In North Korea there are never any trials, and the mere suspicion that a person is disloyal to the communist party can be enough to send him and his entire family to a labour camp.
Not long after this, agents showed up at the family’s house and abruptly informed the household that they were being transferred. No explanations were given, but the hardest part about it for Kang was that his mother was not allowed to accompany them. Since she was descended from an ‘heroic family’ she was not allowed to join her children even though she begged to be able to.
Nine-year old Kang, along with his seven-year old sister Mi-ho, his father, grandmother, uncle and aunt, were taken to a camp in Yodok, South-Hamkyung Province. For the next ten years Kang remained in the camp, without ever being told what his grandfather had allegedly done to warrant this treatment.
Kang’s account of his time in the North Korean Gulag gives us unique insight into the camp system and the totalitarian regime that sustains it. We also learn about his exciting escape to China and finally to South Korea, where he was converted to Christianity and became one of the chief advocates for human rights in North Korea.
Next month’s Christian Voice newsletter will contain a review of the book, including a detailed description of the horrors witnessed by Kang in the camp – conditions which are still a reality for the thousands of Christians imprisoned in these camps.
In the following video, Kang Chol-Hwan uses satellite imagery to show the horrors of the concentration camp system.
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Christian Voice National Director Stephen Green said today,
‘Tesco haven’t actually budged an inch. They are still determined to give £30,000 to London Gay Pride 2012 as they said originally. And by announcing that they will continue to support their in-store homosexual contact group ‘Out at Tesco’ in new ways after 2012 they have made matters worse not better.
‘But Tesco are clearly worried. Christian Voice led the campaign against Tesco on 18th November by providing our members and friends with target addresses and emails for Tesco executives, including CEO Philip Clarke and Chairman Sir Richard Broadbent.
‘We have printed thousands of leaflets pointing out the evils of homosexual practice and calling for shoppers to boycott the supermarket giant. Dozens of our members have been handing these out in the last couple of weeks.
‘I was pleased to see the Christian Institute pick up on our boycott idea a week before Christmas, but what is really important is spreading the message among those who do not visit Christian campaign websites.
‘That is why I and other Christian Voice members spent some time on the day before Christmas Eve leafleting shoppers outside the Tesco Express stores in Baker Street and Melcombe Street.
‘In 2012 we need to step up our campaign. Firms sponsor events, individuals or sporting teams to associate themselves with that product’s ‘brand’. Stars lose sponsorship if their behaviour drops below a certain standard. The ‘gay pride’ brand suggests not wholesomeness but depravity, immorality, drug use, aggression, division and religious hatred. If the Lord blesses our campaign with more prayer and more willing hands, Tesco will be increasingly identified with the negative ‘gay pride brand’ throughout 2012.
‘We have also launched a petition and above all, last month we called for prayer for confusion in the Tesco Boardroom, for sales and profits to fall and for God to have the victory.
‘Confusion is now certainly reigning in the Tesco HQ in Cheshunt, with one inept decision after another, firstly dithering while Tesco’s Head of Research and Development, Nick Lansley, calls Christians ‘evil’ then annoying the gays with an unnecessary announcement while failing to placate decent people, and then trying to pacify the gays hours later. Christmas sales must have taken a knock to cause such panic.’
Tesco’s initial decision to give £30,000 toLondon’s aggressive, divisive display of political muscle and depravity was the result of intense lobbying inside Tesco from Lansley, a militant anti-Christian homosexual who filmed himself reciting the blasphemous Gay News poem and used his blog, on which he gave his full Tesco job description, to describe Christians opposing gay marriage as ‘evil.’
Stephen Green continued: ‘What made Tesco’s decision to bankroll Gay Pride all the worse was that they ended support for Cancer Research days before. They stopped saving precious lives in favour of propping up a deviant lifestyle.
‘It was good to find out last night that Tesco are rattled by our protest and were wobbling even as we were leafleting their stores.
‘It isn’t a victory in any sense yet, but it is an encouragement to press in harder with getting the leaflets into the hands of more shoppers in the New Year. Above all it just shows what power Christians can harness when they pray and act wholeheartedly in unity in a righteous cause.
‘The Governments’ decision to press ahead with so-called ‘gay marriage’ is suddenly looking rather vulnerable.
PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY that Tesco will back down, and that many more Christians will join our campaign to leaflet Tesco customers and spread word of the boycott and the reasons behind it.
The death of North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Il, was reported today. The future of the nation remains in doubt, as does the fate of the thousands of Christians who are still imprisoned in North Korea’s horrendous concentration camps.
Will Kim Jong-un, the heir presumptive to the leadership of the nation, relax his father’s policies of intolerance against believers and let the Christians go? Or will the policies of hardline atheism continue to be enforced?
Questions such as these are especially tense this Christmas since North Korea has threatened South Korea if the latter puts up Christmas lights. (Within the atheistic dictatorship of North Korea, any reminder about Jesus’ birth is strictly taboo and they would prefer not to have to see Christmas lights across the border in Seoul.)
South Korea has gone into a state of alert in case the North (with whom they are still officially at war since no peace treaty has ever been signed) chooses to attack.
The CNN video below explains the brief history of the late Kim Jong Il, although strangely they have left out all mention of his horrendous crimes against the Christian community. To address the balance, below the video we have copied the report we ran in March 2009.
Persecution of Christians in North Korea
North Korea is universally recognized as leading the world in the persecution of Christians. While opposed to all religions, Kim Jong-il believes that Christianity was a particularly harmful threat to his power. Under his direction, Christians are routinely, beaten, tortured, arrested for life, mutilated and murdered.
Given the obvious secrecy of Christianity in North Korea, it is difficult to calculate the size of the church. However, it is estimated that less than 2% of the population are Christian. These Christians hold secret meetings in houses and caves.
If a North Korean is caught carrying a Bible, it is impossible to save your life short of divine intervention. Those who get executed are the lucky ones as punishment often also includes the imprisonment of a Christian’s mother, father, sisters, brothers, children and grandchildren.
“There are no preliminary hearings when religious people get caught,” one former agent said. “[We] regard them as anti-revolutionary elements. When such an offender is caught in North Korea, the NSA officers surround the person and kick and beat the person severely before interrogating.”
Communist Police stop at no limit to hunt out and punish Christians, including pretending to be Christians in order to infiltrate their underground prayer meetings. The information they obtain is then used to identify and arrest Christians, who are then either executed or taken to prison camps.
At least a quarter of all North Korean Christians have been incarcerated in prison camps, where inmates face everything from starvation to beatings to Nazi-style gas chambers to experimental torture techniques that defy comprehension. Inhuman experiments are also performed on babies that come to the camps.
Many North Korean Christians have found refuge by fleeing to neighboring China. Between 30,000 and 300,000 North Koreans now reside in China. However, if any of these Christians are caught, they are immediately sent home where they face certain death. Notwithstanding, many North Koreans, including former prison guards who have defected, have successfully remained hidden in China where they have given secret interviews to the Committee For Human Rights in North Korea. From these interviews it has emerged that the following procedures permeate the detention systems:
water torture
motionless-kneeling for periods of up to 6 days (detainees who move while they are supposed to be kneeling motionless are handcuffed from the upper bars of their cells with their feet off the floor)
beating prisoners to death
sleep deprivation
forcing detainees to beat each other
breaking fingers
forcing prisoners to live in permanent situations of deliberately contrived semi-starvation
placing prisoners in a 1.5-meter-square (16.5-feet-square) punishment cell for a week or more, where they are unable to sit up or lie down
forcing prisoners to remain for long periods in the cold
forcing prisoners to sit motionless for six day periods
routine infanticide and forced abortions at prison camps, including stamping on the necks of babies until they die.
In addition to the above, documents smuggled out by defectors reveal routine chemical experimentation on human beings. One document from 2002, stamped “top secret”, reads: “The above person is transferred from … camp number 22 for the purpose of human experimentation of liquid gas for chemical weapons.”
For obvious reasons, missionary activity to North Korea remains highly secretive.
It is with great sadness that we are not able to report any improvement in this horrific situation. In fact, autumn 2009 saw new challenges for Christians as the nation’s dictator, Kim Jong-Il, called for a ‘100-day battle’ to strengthen the economy. What this meant in practice was that everyone became his slave and had to go to work on state farms. Those found on the street without a valid reason were immediately shipped off to a concentration camp. This has meant that Christian fathers have not been able to provide for their families, and in the Hwangae province it is normal to see children lying dead in the streets. Some parents have been working illegally at night to provide for their children before reporting back to the state jobs in the morning.
PRAY: that God bring a miracle of deliverance in this country where Christians are suffering even worst atrocities than those occurring under Islamic regimes and even worse than those which the early Christians faced at the hands of Rome. Ask the Lord to grant them victory over their enemies and courage to boldly affirm Christ in the midst of unimaginable suffering. Pray for the missionaries who have been secretly labouring to bring Bibles and comfort to our brothers in North Korea. Ask the Lord to break the teeth of our North Korean enemies (Ps. 58:6). Pray that they would melt away as waters which run continually; when they bend their bow to shoot their arrows, let them be as cut in pieces (Ps. 58:7). May the righteous in North Korea rejoice by seeing God’s vengeance and may they wash their feet in the blood of the wicked (Ps. 58:10), that all shall say, “Truly there is a reward for the righteous: truly he is a God that judges the earth.” (Ps. 58:11).
WRITE: to your MP and ask him to ask the Foreign Secretary what he is doing to help Christians in North Korea.
The Daily Mail has run a story about the BBC employing more atheists and non-believers than Christians after submitting a Freedom of Information request.
An internal BBC survey indeed found that just 22.5 per cent of all staff professed to be Christians, but 43% of staff did not respond to the survey. The Daily Mail said the Christians were outnumbered by atheists and those of no faith, at 23.5 per cent, but that figure was arrived at by adding the professing atheists (8.9%) to those of no faith (14.6%). Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs totalled 3.2% while ‘others’ were 2.6%, and 5.2% preferred not to say.
The Daily Mail’s Jonathan Petrie said ‘the new research has been seized on by critics who accuse the Corporation of bias against Christianity and marginalising the faith in its output’. He quoted BBC veteran Roger Bolton, who until recently presented BBC Radio 4’s religious current affairs programme, ‘Sunday’, as saying: ‘There is an inbuilt but unconscious bias against religion, fuelled by the fact staff are not representative of the public. It is not a conspiracy but it needs a correction.’
Amanda Rice, BBC Head of Diversity, protested that the figures had been ‘wilfully misunderstood by the paper’ and that ‘Of those who were asked about their religion, Christianity was by far the largest category, with 4,619 people.’
To put it all into context, the BBC employs 20,536 staff and they have so far researched 57% of them. Sheryl Holland in the BBC’s Press Office told us: “Nearly 60% of BBC staff have been asked about their religion or belief and, of those, Christianity was by far the largest faith. That said when it comes to recruitment the BBC hires staff based on skills and experience alone. To recruit based on faith or religious belief would be unlawful. As the majority faith of the UK, Christian programming is, and will remain, the cornerstone of the BBC’s religious output.”
The BBC is also frequently acccused of being staffed by 20-somethings but while the age-range is younger than the popualtion it may be argued not to be ridiculously so. 15% of staff are 20-29, 35.8% are 30 – 39, 31.4% are in the 40-49 bracket, 15.2% are aged 50-59 and 60+ accounts for 2.4%.
The Mail has certainly sensationalised the story, but it remains that BBC staff as a whole are unrepresentative of the population at large, where, according to the last census, around 72% claimed to be Christian, with just 15.5% saying they had no religion. At the BBC, out of those who have volunteered information, 39.5% claim to be Christian, 15.6% atheist and 25.6% of no religion. Other religions are similar to the proportions in the population.
Before the Conservatives won the election, their spokesman for culture said the BBC should actively seek to redress its “innate liberal bias”, quoting the phrase applied to the BBC by its former political editor Andrew Marr in 2007.
Mr Marr also described the BBC as “a publicly funded urban organisation with an abnormally large proportion of younger people, of people in ethnic minorities and almost certainly of gay people compared with the population at large”.
Now that he has been HM Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport for over a year, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP has done very little to sort out the ‘innate liberal bias’ at the BBC.
It is not only Andrew Marr who has raised his head above the parapet. In October 2008, the conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra spoke of an ‘ignorant’ secular liberal minority in the media seeking to drive religion from the public sphere.
In January 2009, the Christian BBC presenter Jeremy Vine told Reform Magazine that it has become “almost socially unacceptable to say you believe in God” on the BBC. He did not think he would be allowed to say that Christ is who he said he was on air.
In July 2006, a veteran BBC executive told a meeting called to address the problem of anti-Christian bias: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. ‘Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, responded:
‘It would be good to know the religious break-down of people in BBC top jobs, because it rather seems as if the Christians at the BBC have either a secularist world-view or little vision of how to turn the place upside down, as the early Apostles were accused of doing. Putting the comments from Andrew Marr and Jeremy Vine together, it just seems far easier to be atheistic and gay than to be normal and Christian at the BBC.
‘The BBC’s atheistic staff bias becomes amplified in its programming. For example, the Radio 4 programme ‘The Moral Maze’ regularly has atheists as 3 out of 4 of its panel. Only Melanie Phillips is allowed to articulate the views of the majority of the audience, who of course, are almost exactly as Judeo-Christian as the Moral Maze panel is atheist.
‘It is good that there is some religious programming on the BBC, and that Christianity is the cornerstone of it, but it is kept safely in its God-slot ghetto, from where a flagship religious programme like Songs of Praise is kept as bland as possible and is allowed to irritate but not seriously challenge the atheist status quo.
‘The real problem is not the lack of Christian programming, but the fact that no world-view other than a tedious atheist outlook informs normal programming content. The BBC really should have the decency to acknowledge there are valid points of view other than the grindingly politically-correct anti-Christ atheism held by the majority of its staff.
‘Christians in soaps are always portrayed as weak, or stupid, or bigoted. Meanwhile, story-lines are concocted to introduce homosexuals whenever possible and to show favoured religious minorities in a good light. We have had pro-lifers as terrorists.
‘While the BBC’s natural history programming is often inspiring, it is impossible for a wildlife programme to look objectively at the wonder of nature. The audience are treated like small children in a school-room, always having to be reminded that the animals ‘developed’, ‘evolved’, or ‘appeared’.
‘When the BBC decided to make a programme about language, they had to get the anti-Christian atheist homosexual Stephen Fry to present it.
‘When they wanted to look at anthropology, it was only natural to them to seek out the fanatical evolutionist Dr Alice Roberts. In ‘The Origins of Us‘ we had vacuous subjective claims that our ape-like ancestors apparently miraculously (something in which perhaps only a minority at the BBC would believe) decided to walk upright in search of food as they surveyed the African savannah, and that our tools moulded the shape of our hands, rather than the other way around. The lack of objectivity and the amount of unfounded speculation makes such programmes rather silly but the BBC’s atheist oligarchy press on regardless.
‘The vision of Lord Reith was of a BBC which would elevate viewers with whatever things were pure, lovely and of good report and to promote virtue. He set this vision in stone.
‘As they shuffle past the declaration in the entrance to Broadcasting House, the atheists in charge at the BBC seem intent on promoting the very opposite. An opportunity to sneer at Christianity or Christians is rarely allowed to pass.
‘Obviously the BBC will have no overt recruiting policy that puts Christians at a disadvantage. It is more subtle than that. The BBC simply appears to be a self-perpetuating atheist oligarchy, and it will take a miracle akin to that of those fabled ancestors walking upright before there is any change.’
PRAY: For the BBC’s Christians to be given faith in the conquering King of kings and courage to stand up for all they believe. Pray for a miracle in the management, that God would be honoured once again so that the words inscribed in the Broadcasting House entrance hall would become an inspiration.
The Broadcasting House Inscription, set in Latin for all to see, above a statue of ‘The Sower’:
DEI OMNIPOTENTI TEMPLUM HOC ARTIUM ET MUSARUM ANNO DOMINI MCMXXXI RECTORE JOHANNI REITH PRIMI DEDICANT GUBERNATORES PRECANTES UT MESSEM BONAM BONA PROFERAT SEMENTIS UT IMMUNDA OMNIA ET INIMICA PACI EXPELLANTUR UT QUAECUNQUE PULCHRA SUNT ET SINCERA QUACUNQUE BONAE FAMAE AD HAEC AVREM INCLINANS POPULUS VIRTUTIS ET SAPIENTIAE SEMITAM INSISTAT.
Translation:
‘To Almighty God this shrine of the arts, music and literature is dedicated by the first Governors in the year of our Lord 1931, John Reith being Director General. It is their prayer that good seed sown will produce a good harvest, that everything offensive to decency and hostile to peace will be expelled, and that the nation will incline its ear to those things which are lovely, pure and of good report and thus pursue the path of wisdom and virtue’.
Domenic Johansson remains separated from his parents, even as Swedish Social Services seek to remove all remaining parental rights.
Domenic, now 10 after his recent birthday, has been separated from his parents two and a half years, following his abduction by Social Services while seated in a commercial airliner with his parents awaiting departure on a flight to India.
Domenic is a citizen of India, and his mother’s family all live in India. However, Swedish Social Services in Domenic’s home town of Gottland decided to prevent the family’s departure in order to force the boy to attend their school.
The family had received no preliminary warning, nor they had been forbidden from leaving the country. They had also not been accused of breaking the law. Indeed, the only complaint the Swedish Social Services had against the family at the time was that they wanted to homeschool.
Throughout the ordeal the rights of the parents have not been respected and they have not even been allowed to choose their own legal representation.
Christian Voice Members will receive information in our next newsletter about the protests we have planned, and other ways that you can help reunite Domenic with his parents.
Summary of the Domenic Saga
The tragic saga began the year before when Domenic was six and his father, Christer Johannson, contacted the Swedish Ministry of Education to inquire about home education.
Domenic as he played happily just hours before his abduction.
Christer Johannson is Swedish, while his wife, Annie Johansson, is a citizen of India. Because they were planning on relocating to India soon to be with Annie’s family, Christer thought it would be best to homeschool Domenic during the interim. While Christians, the parents were not committed to homeschooling for ideological reasons and had even planned on putting their son in the public school once they reached India.
Annie has two Masters Degrees and is highly qualified in the task of educating her son. Moreover, homeschooling was not illegal in Sweden at the time.
When Mr. Johansson got in touch with the Swedish Ministry of Education to inquire about home education, the Ministry told him to contact his local school principal in order to obtain the necessary curriculum. However, when Mr. Johannson contacted the principal of the nearest public school, the principal refused to provide the materials, saying “You don’t have the right to educate your son and I will be taking this further.”
What the principal meant by “taking it further” was that the family would be reported to the social services. Mr. Johansson didn’t know that at the time, but he did know that the Ministry of Education, Swedish law and Europe’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights all allowed them to homeschool. So he and Annie began homeschooling Domenic.
Officials at the local school district were furious about this and called Mr. Johansson before a hearing of the Child and Education Department.
Domenic in the airplane watching as police board to put him into foster care. The Swedish Social Services’ purpose in preventing the family moving to India is because they wanted Domenic to attend the state schools in Sweden.
During the hearing Mr. Johansson explained to the judge that the family was planning on relocating to India in six weeks to be with Annie’s family. It did not make sense to keep Domenic in the state school only to withdraw him shortly afterwards. The judge replied, “Ok, fine” and asked for the date of travel.
No court order was issued prohibiting the family from leaving the country. Domenic is a dual citizen of Sweden and India and had every right to accompany his parents on the move. Thus, Christer and Annie were shocked when the authorities boarded the airliner and forcibly removed Domenic.
Social Services’ only purpose in removing Domenic from the airplane was to prevent him moving to India where he would be outside the jurisdiction of the Swedish state schools. He was not truant from school at the time because it was summer break. As the Alliance Defence fund have pointed out in their application of appeal to the European Court of Human Rights:
“Domenic Johansson was removed from that plane only because social services believed it knew better than his parents what was in Domenic’s best interest; a belief steeped in discrimination against their religious and philosophical beliefs with regard to Domenic’s upbringing and education…Swedish officials removed this boy from an international flight solely to prevent his parents from moving to another nation and from educating him in a manner that is lawful in India, in Sweden, and in a majority of nations…
“please let me come home”
For the Johansson family, that was just the beginning of their troubles. After having their son snatched from their custody, the immediate problem was how to get Domenic back.
Christer and Annie were only able to visit their son, now in foster care, for one hour every five weeks.
They soon faced a new dilemma. The visits with their son were allowed to continue but only on the condition that they pretend to their son that they did not want him to come home with them and were happy for him to be in foster care. Social Services said they would lose visitation rights forever if they did not keep up the pretense.
During every visit there was always a social worker in the room, listening to every word and taking notes.
I interviewed a man who spoke to Christer last September when this was going on. He said:
“In September Christer expressed his frustration to me that social services was putting extreme pressure on him and his wife to pretend to Domenic that they don’t want him back and that they are happy with his current custodial arrangement, in order to be allowed to have continued visitation.
Christer said that the requirement to pretend to be happy with the situation was putting a great deal of additional mental and emotional stress on his family, beyond what you would expect from the situation itself.
After 18 months, the Johannsens finally exhausted all the legal appeals available to them in the Swedish court system. They hired one of the best human rights lawyers in Europe, but the judge dismissed her from the case. Last December, the Supreme Administrative Court of Sweden rejected their final appeal on the grounds that by preventing the family moving to India, the court was protecting Domenic’s “right to education.”
Meanwhile, it became increasingly difficult for Christer and Annie to keep lying to their son.
Every time the visits occurred, Domenic would ask, “please let me come home.” And every time the parents were forced to try to pretend that they didn’t want Domenic back.
Christer knew what often happened to other Swedish children in foster care, and worried for his son’s safety. In Daniel Hammarberg’s shocking exposé of the Swedish social services,The Madhouse: A Critical Study of Swedish Society, Hammarberg gives alarming evidence of what happens to the mental health of children like Domenic who have been taken away from their parents. (To read excerpts from the book, click here. To get the book on Kindle, click here.) Some of victims of the Swedish Social Services, such as 13 year old Elin, have even committed suicideChrister began to worry what might happen to his son if Domenic continued to think that his parents were rejecting him.
This put the parents in an agonizing position. Should they continue to lie to their son and destroy his faith in the only two human beings in this world that truly love him? Or should they tell Domenic the truth – that they love him and want him back?
After an agonizing time, Christer decided to tell his son the truth and suffer the consequences. So just last week during visitation, Domenic once again begged his father to take him home. This time, instead of lying, Christer said, “ok, let’s go.” The social workers in Sweden are unarmed so there was nothing they could do to stop him from walking out of the visitation room with Domenic.
Domenic was able to spend a beautiful day and a half with his parents and grandparents, whom he had not seen in 18 months. During this time Christer and Annie explained to Domenic the truth. They explained that they had not rejected him, that they loved him and had been fighting for his freedom for the last 18 months. They told him that whatever happened they would always love him.
“Held Hostage” by the Government
The police wasted no time. When they found out where the family was, several squad cars descended upon the Johansson home. Armed police swept in, dragging Domenic out into the unseasonably frigid temperatures without even giving him an opportunity to get his jacket. Christer was thrown into jail, charged with kidnapping his own son. Although he was released last February (to read our story about it, click here), Domenic remains a captive.
Domenic loved his parents and grandparents. He had a rich and happy childhood and was well provided for by his intelligent Christian parents. However, in Sweden it is the State that is the ultimate parent. Drunk with a sense of their own omnipotence, Swedish Social Services could not let the family move to India for the simple reason that they would then no longer be able to force Domenic to attend their state schools.
“I have never in 20 years of practice seen a case more badly handled,” commented Harrold-Claaesson, a noted international human rights lawyer and president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights. She continued:
“This family has been so traumatized that they may never recover. The Swedish government has grossly violated this family’s human rights, both under Swedish law and under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Under the ECHR people have the right to leave their country. But in this case the social services took this poor little boy and prevented him from leaving with his parents. He is being held a hostage—essentially kidnapped by the Swedish government. It is an absolute embarrassment for Sweden and for every person involved in this case. Each person, from the social workers to the judges, should be ashamed of their behavior and their continuing callousness towards this family. They all must be brought to justice for their crimes against the Johansson family.”
To read all our earlier reports about the Johansson family, click here.
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The Email address of the President of Iran is further down this post. Update ends.
Call to rescind death penalty for Iranian pastor.
Our urgent action is needed to secure an official pardon for Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, convicted of apostasy.
Christian Solidarity say it has become traditional to pardon prisoners during Eid Al-Ahda in some parts of the Muslim world. Already during Eid 2011, hundreds of prisoners have been pardoned in Morocco, Egypt and Dubai. We have just today to secure a pardon for Pastor Nadarkhani during Eid, but if you read this after the date, your emails will bring much needed pressure after the festival as well.
Melanie Phillips wrote about this case a month ago. Pastor Youcef continues to deny the charges of apostasy, and it is not at all clear if he has ever held the Muslim faith to apostatise from it. In the face of pressure from the USA, the Iranians went into panic mode and claimed the Pastor had committed other crimes, crimes for which, strangely enough, he has never been charged. It seems he may have been asked, and refused, to recant and deny Jesus Christ three times now.
Melanie Phillips concludes: ‘It is still possible to save this man’s life if enough protest is made. British political leaders should be making their voices heard very loudly against this barbarity by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Have you been hearing them? No, nor have I.’
– EMAIL: Since the expulsion of Iranian diplomats, we can no longer email the Iranian Chargé d’affaires at the UK Embassy. However, we can email the President of Iran, and ask him, respectfully of course, when Pastor Nadarkhani will be acquitted, or pardoned, and released. Head your email: ‘Attn: His Excellency the President’ then begin ‘Your Excellency’ and conclude ‘Yours faithfully.’ dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
– Email your MP and ask him/her to ask the Foreign Secretary to call in the Iranian Charge d’Affaires to demand Pastor Nadarkhani be released.
Remember: When emailing or writing to dignitaries of any sort, keep to one subject, keep it simple and ask a question.
Psalm 31:2 Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.
Daniel 3:25 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
PRAY: That we shall hear speedily that Pastor Nadarkhani has been delivered from prison, and that HMG put real pressure on the Iranians to release our brother. Pray that in the meantime he will know the presence of the Lord Jesus just as the children of Israel had the Son of God with them in the fiery furnace.Pray too for his wife and two sons at this difficult time that the Lord will uphold them.
The respected journalist Melanie Phillips has been congratulated by Christian Voice on her award of ‘Bigot of the Year’ by the Stonewall homosexual lobby group. But we have accused Stonewall of cowardice for not inviting any of those shortlisted to their awards dinner last night.
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, was also shortlisted for the award for his comments about Elton John’s designer baby and for championing the right of African nations to keep sodomy as a criminal offence.
The others shortlisted on the Stonewall website were the Rt Rev Arthur Roche, Scottish Section 28 campaigner Sir Brian Souter and Bill Walker MSP. Not one of those shortlisted was actually invited to the awards ceremony and dinner, an omission described as a ‘grave discourtesy’ by Christian Voice.
Stephen Green said today:
‘It was a great honour to be shortlisted for Stonewall’s ‘Bigot of the Year’ award and I am disappointed not to have won. I really must put more effort into opposing the gay rights lobby before next year’s event. All the same, I congratulate Melanie Phillips for her winning position of standing up for the right of children not to be abused by Stonewall-devised homosexual imagery in sex education.
‘Yesterday I described Stonewall’s failure to invite those shortlisted for such an important award as a grave discourtesy. I expressed disappointment that a group which has, as I put it, “such lofty ideals as the promotion of buggery and gross indecency” should be so lacking in the fundamentals of social intercourse.
‘When any public body holds an awards ceremony, they invite those shortlisted for each award as a courtesy. But ‘Bigot of the Year’ is not a serious award, it is merely an attempt by the homosexuals to bully and humiliate someone in public life. Chris Grayling MP, Jan Moir and the Earl of Devon have been on the receiving end in previous years for imagined slights against homosexuals.
‘However, the last thing a bully wants is for their victim to stand up and give them a taste of their own medicine. Stonewall don’t actually have the courage to invite those shortlisted for fear that the winner might tell the assembled gays a few home truths. They daren’t risk that. Like all bullies, they are cowards.
‘The Nationwide Building Society sponsor the Stonewall annual awards dinner, which does not stop the greedy gay group from charging those attending £180.00 a ticket.
‘The ‘Bigot’ award ought to be an embarrassment to them and that may be the reason why they don’t mention it when patting themselves on the back on their company website.
‘I call on Nationwide to apologise to those whom Stonewall has accused of ‘bigotry’ or state that they approve of bullying and humiliating public figures and the cowardice of not allowing them to answer back.’
Members can email the Nationwide Chief Executive, Graham Beale, on gjbeale2@nationwide.co.ukto put these points to him or phone 01793 513 513 (then say the name “Graham Beale”).
A number of our members are threatening to withdraw their funds from Nationwide. It is a good idea to leave £100 in. Anyone who has savings of £100 or more with Nationwide, or whose mortgage is with Nationwide, is entitled to attend their annual general meeting the next one of which will be held in July 2012.
On this very day (4 November) in 1789, the Frenchman Charles-Jean-François Depont wrote to Edmund Burke MP, requesting that he endorse the Revolution that had just broken out in France.
Burke’s response to Charles-Jean turned into one of the most celebrated political tracts in history, and for good reason. Not only did Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in Francebecome a pillar of conservative political thought, but it stands alongside the works of Shakespeare and the King James Bible as being the greatest literary achievement in the English language.
Christian Voice did a biography of Edmund Burke in our January 2010 newsletter as part of our ongoing series of Christian heroes. (To join Christian Voice and receive our monthly newsletter, click HERE.) We explored Burke’s idea that true freedom can only be preserved by reverencing our ancestors. This is because liberty is not, according to Burke, a natural right of man but the product of tradition, family, and faith. As such, liberty is passed on in much the same way that property is transmitted, from one generation to another through inheritance.
To support this notion of liberty as an inheritance, Burke pointed to the great freedoms of the British tradition, showing that they had accumulated over a period stretching back to the Declaration of Rights, the Magna Charta and the entire network of common law freedoms preserved by the hereditary monarchy. He warned that the legacy of these liberties would not long abide a generation that was willing to cast off the heritage of their ancestors. At the same time, however, Burke did not advocate a static traditionalism; rather, whenever he wished to reform, it was in order to conserve. He understood the wisdom of Proverbs when it says, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set” (Prov. 22:28) and “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change: For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?” (Prov. 24:21-22)
If Burke had lived long enough to see our own age, I do not think he would be pleased. We live at a time when the common law foundations that have been transmitted to us by our ancestors are under constant attack. Consider that
The previous Government discussed a blueprint for “sweep[ing] away centuries of tradition” by turning the House of Lords into an elected chamber.
In the last part of the 20th century and early 21st century, Government pared down our Common Law freedoms at an astonishing rate, including the right not to be punished until a court has decided that the law has been broken, the right to private communication, the right to trial by jury, the right to silence, the right to demonstrate and protest, the right to travel without surveillance and the presumption of innocence. (See Robin Phillips’ article, ‘The Orwellian Legacy of Tony Blair‘)
In 2008, the BBC reported that the Justice Secretary was considering replacing the British constitution with a written document like that possessed by the United States.
In April 2007, Parliament functionally nullified key aspects of the Magna Carta in order to meet the demands of homosexual activists. (See Scott Lively’s article ‘Requiem for the Magna Carta.‘)
Edmund Bruke would not be pleased by these developments. In fact, in his critique of the revolutionary mentality, he warned against this very thing. He cautioned against overturning years of established precedent to meet the demands of the latest fad.
Burke would also not be pleased by the way the present Government has taken it upon itself to challenge centuries of Common Law by suggesting that the rules regulating the succession of the British throne should be changed. (See our earlier article ‘Christian Voice Takes Stand For Male Primogeniture‘.) The campaign against male primogeniture is only one example of our leaders pandering to those who are “given to change” or attempting to remove “the ancient landmark” that Proverbs 22:28 enjoins us not to remove. Some translations refer to this as a ‘boundary stone’, bringing to mind the image of a person trying to increase his property through dishonest manipulation. However, more is at stake in this verse than mere property rights, a point made by Duane Garrett in his commentary on Proverbs:
“To move a boundary stone was to attempt to seize land furtively. More is involved here, however, than real property. The boundary stone represented the ancient constitution of Israel, and to violate that heritage was to undermine the distinctive character of the land in Israelite society.
In our day, no less than in ancient Israel, there are those who are attempting attempted to tamper with our Christian Constitution, and undermining the distinctive character of our land in the process. Let us join our voices with those of Burke in opposing such innovations.
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Christian Voice is a prophetic ministry in the ‘forthtelling’ sense for those Christians who are fed up with the way things are, have had enough of secularist politicians imposing wickedness on the rest of us and who are not satisfied with trying to get ‘Christian influence in a secular world’ because they know ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein’ (Psalm 24:1). If you want instead to lift high the Crown Rights of the King of kings, you have found the right place!
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Please send me my free copy of Britain in Sin, which lifts the lid on the unrighteous legislation of the past fifity years and its devastating social consequences, my free copy of Understanding Islam, which will tell me all I need to know about Islam, my free copy of Labelling Halal, which exposes the secret sale of Islamic meat, and the latest Christian Voice newsletter, full of confidential prayer targets, which never goes up on the web.
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Aims of Christian Voice
To uphold Christianity as the Faith of the United Kingdom.
To be a voice for Biblical values in law and public policy.
To defend and support traditional family life.
At all times to rely humbly on the blessing of Almighty God.
Statement of Faith
We believe in one creator God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as stated in the historic creeds of the Christian church.
We acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord over all creation.
We believe the Holy Bible to be the inspired, infallible, written Word of God to whose precepts, given for the good of nations and individuals, all man’s laws must submit.
We believe all government to be under the authority of God and that its purpose is the maintenance of freedom and justice solely in accordance with Biblical principles.
Cost of annual membership is £20.00
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Australians in Brisbane should have the fear of God after the floods which devastated it earlier this year, but here are gays flaunting their sin as Sodom and assaulting Christians preaching the Gospel. Ironically, the homosexual rally against which the Christians were witnessing called for tolerance and was promoted by ‘Equal Love’.
In the United Kingdom, we have had similar homosexual violence against Christians and we are now seeing persecution of Christians at work and in business in the name of ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’.
The latest case in Britain involves housing manager Adrian Smith, demoted for not backing gay marriage. Smith, a practising Christian, has had his pay slashed because he said on his private Facebook page that that allowing gay weddings in churches was ‘an equality too far’.
British Catholic adoption agencies have been closed down by our ‘sexual orientation regulations’ and Christian public sector workers are now afraid to express any view against homosexuality. The aggressive ‘gay lobby’ rules in Parliament, the Courts and Town Halls up and down the land, imposing its immorality on the rest of society.
We call for compassion for all those caught in sexual sin. The Church should be ministering the saving and healing grace of Jesus Christ to these unfortunate individuls. Equally, human rights include no right to commit acts against nature. The experience of the United Kingdom and Australia, to say nothing of the USA, shows what inevitably happens to those nations which legalise unnatural acts.
Do African nations really need gay pride marches? This sad and depraved scene took place in London.
CANBERRA, Australia — An official says leaders of former British Empire countries will be asked next weekend to legalize homosexuality.
Australian delegate Michael Kirby told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio yesterday that the agenda includes a recommendation to legalize homosexuality. Kirby claims countries have a difficult time educating populations about safe sex while also banning ‘gay sex’.
Leaders of 53 Commonwealth countries will meet in the Australian city of Perth over the weekend of 28th to 30th October 2011 for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. As motions are determined by consensus, the Australian initiative will most likely get nowhere, but it is part of the pressure being exerted by the white donor nations on those they regard as less ‘enlightened’.
Australian activist Rob Lake says most Commonwealth countries outlaw homosexuality and the response to the recommendation would ‘test their human rights commitment’.
London Gay Pride March
The truth about HIV/AIDS
Firstly, Kirby’s claim is both self-serving and contradictory. For years sodomy advocates have told the rest of us that HIV/AIDS is not a ‘gay disease’ and did not predominantly affect the homosexual network. Now Kirby admits that it does. So what is the truth?
In fact, HIV/AIDS is a bloodbourne disease which needs to get into the bloodstream direct or through an open wound.
So, firstly, the rectum is easily torn during sodomy, and the rectal wall is only one cell thick. It is perfectly designed to extract water from bodily waste, so viruses of all sorts can be absorbed straight into the blood-stream during the unnatural act of sodomy.
Secondly, if sexually-transmitted diseases go untreated, they can leave lesions through which HIV can travel during normal sexual intercourse. Thirdly, reuse of hypodermic needles following inadequate sterilisation can transmit HIV in some countries’ medical establishments. Chastity before marriage, faithfulness in marriage and good medical practice, which may need better funding, are much more effective than condoms in stopping HIV/AIDS.
Legalising homosexual acts will increase gay tourism
Legalising sodomy would only make matters worse, and will also lead to more of the horrors of gay tourism which already corrupt children in parts of Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. Despite what Mr Lake and other ‘health’ and ‘human rights’ activists say, there is no human right to commit unnatural sexual acts in any human rights document. Homosexual attraction is not inbuilt. Both men and women have been released from it.
Lesbian aggression at Sidney Mardi Gras; one of the less indecent photos on the Mardi Gras website.
Let us look at the countries leading the pro-sodomy charge. In Australia, the Sydney ‘MardiGras‘ has, according to its website, been taken up with enthusiasm by the city. It, like every MardiGras and Gay Pride everywhere in the world, is an annual display of Western depravity and obscenity.
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said today:
‘Those Commonwealth nations who still respect morality and the sovereignty of Almighty God have to stand together against the cultural imperialism of rich white countries. Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand still have a colonialist mindset in which the white man knows best. Well perhaps Britain and the rest, where immorality in public policy is leading to a breakdown of society and even to violence on the streets, need to take some lessons in decency and respect from African, Caribbean and Asian nations.
‘I live in a country which has been rushing along a godless road to destruction for the past fifty years. Britain legalised sodomy, abortion, divorce-on-demand and pornography in the 1960s. Today Britain is described as brutal and broken even by leading politicians like David Cameron himself.
‘The nation which took the Gospel around the world is now intent on exporting our peculiar brand of wickedness.
‘Our experience in Britain shows that legalising sodomy leads to full gay rights, recognised homosexual partnerships and then ‘gay weddings’, hate crimes laws designed to prevent pastors speaking the truth about human sexuality, and an aggressive homosexual lobby which allows no dissent in political parties or in the corridors of power.
‘In Britain, it has led to hoteliers being forced to let rooms to pairs of homosexuals and forced those who oppose sodomy out of public-sector jobs. Ours is a society going to a libertarian hell on earth where the rights of people to practice their Christian faith are openly trampled on.
‘And if activists want to talk about human rights, let them explain away the fact that in England and Wales, 189,574 children were killed by abortion in 2010 alone. Every single day of the year, on average, over 500 unborn children are being torn out of what should be the safest place on God’s earth in the United Kingdom. Where is their human right to life? For some amazing pictures of life – and death – before birth, click HERE
‘Truly, David Cameron has no moral high ground at all from which to lecture non-white Commonwealth nations about ‘human rights’.
‘I hope and pray that those nations will stand together to tell Australia and Britain a few home truths about basic morality.’
PLANS to stage next year’s North Wales Mardi Gras in an Anglesey town have been rightly attacked by the leader of a local church, according to the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail.
Reverend Philip Evans, of Oasis Ministries in Beaumaris, said the event should not be held in the town as it was “a promotion of gay rights”.
The organiser of the Mardi Gras, Alan Jones, responded: “The church has a right to object to the Mardi Gras and we respect their right to peaceful protest, but we will carry on regardless. We won’t be put off and we won’t be upset by the criticism. We will welcome them if they want to attend and will treat them civilly.”
Gay parades are aggressive and intimidating
That would be a first.
“The event does not promote homosexuality,” claimed Mr Jones, “It’s an event for everyone which brings the gay community and the straight community together.”
That would be another first. Every Gay Pride and homosexual Mardi Gras is there to promote homosexuality and gay rights and to intimidate and de-sensitize ordinary people. The pictures on this page are of other ‘Pride’ or ‘Mardi Gras’ events in England and Wales.
The event, said the paper, is planned to take place from 27th to 29th April, 2012. For more information, they advised to visit www.northwalesmardigras.com which carries thanks to various ‘drag queens’ with indecent names and to two Anglesey hotels, Tre-Ysgawen Hall at Capel Coch, Llangefni, and the Victoria Hotel at Menai Bridge. If the webpage is correct, these are venues to be avoided by decent people.
Parading their sin - You would need a heart of stone not to weep for the poor souls caught up in sodomy.
Mr Evans is intending to lead an evangelistic witness at the Beaumaris Mardi Gras, if it goes ahead: “We think the best thing is for it not to take place, but we want to be there if it does,” he said. “Homosexuality is a choice people make and people can change. God would help them to be as He intended them to be.”
Christian Voice fully intends to stand with Mr Evans in a concerted evangelistic outreach and witness. Last April 2011, tucked away in the Mona Showground, the participants were isolated from any criticism or evangelism. Next year, the narrow streets of Beaumaris are perfect for preaching and one-to-one conversations, so we can share the good news of Jesus Christ, and let these sad and damaged people know that Jesus releases not just from the stain of sin but from the power of sin. Make a note of the date, all you evangelists out there!
A petition to defend marriage is now up-and-running.
The text is simple:
‘We the undersigned believe that marriage was ordained by God to be the union of one man and one woman and that marriage between two persons of the same sex can not and should not be legalised by any earthly government.’
PLEASE NOTE: You can remain anonymous and you don’t have to give ANY personal information (like your phone numbers and address) to sign this petition. However, if you provide it in the boxes provided we can keep in touch with you better. We will never under any circumstance give your personal details to any third party at all, ever!
And for that very reason we do not advocate or support signing petitions on the No10 or other Gvt websites …
P.S. Any invitation for a donation following your signature of the petition is from ipetitions and not from Christian Voice. You are free either to donate to the site or not as you wish.
After an initial flurry in which two intellectually-challenged policemen from the Lancashire Constabulary told the owner of a Christian cafe in Blackpool that displaying this Bible texts was a breach of public order laws, the police have now apologised.
Jamie Murray, the owner of the Salt and Light coffeehouse, uses a set of DVDs that display the words of the New Testament on a screen on the cafe’s back wall.
Apparently, two officers from Lancashire Constabulary told Mr Murray that a member of the public had complained about ‘homophobic material’ and sid he was in breach of section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.
The police, as the Christian Institute pointed out, ‘got the law wrong’. The cafe can carry on displaying the word of God. There is no need, as some are arguing, for a change in the law to remove the word ‘insulting’ from the Public Order Act. Atheists are certainly in favour of such a change because of the embarrassment they feel in the face of each new episode of anti-Christian police persecution.
But as Ann Widdecombe has pointed out, in every case the police have had to back down and pay compensation to those falsely arrested or charged.
With all the pressures from secularists are and the government to legalise gay marriage, the demands of our time in the fields of abortion and sex education, but a continued threat of civil action against Christian hoteliers, surely we have more important things to concern us.
The police are slow learners, but there will come a time when the lowliest officer on the beat actually knows the law and the judgement of thank you Lord Justice Sedley in the case of Alison Redmond-Bate (1999).
As the Government announces its intention to legislate a lie and allow two men or two women to ‘marry’, here are two of the most ludicrous recent civil partnerships which are already bringing marriage into disrepute.
The first is the Star-Trek-themed bash in Swansea where two middle-aged women, one of whom accompanied by her two young sons, became ‘civil partners’. In other words, at least one of the pair was a fully-functioning heterosexual before deciding to be a lesbian.
The Daily Mail, in all seriousness, reported: ‘46-year-old Anita’s children threw themselves into looking good for their mother’s big day.’ Now either Anita was one of the one-in-six adults currently living in sin, or she was married, in which latter case, she would have had a rather more Godly ‘big day’ before these two boys were born.
The second is the civil partnership between two male-female transsexuals in Cambridge, one of whom served as mayor of the City and the other as his consort.
The Cambridge News reported: ‘The ceremony at Shire Hall only took a few minutes and was attended by two witnesses who threw confetti over the happy couple.
‘Antoinette Jackson, chief executive of the city council, said: “Jenny and Jennifer had a great year when they were mayor and mayoress, and we’d like to wish them all the best on their happy day.” ‘
We have become accustomed to gay rights taking precedence over the right to express the Christian faith. Whether you are a counsellor like Gary McFarlane, or Christian hoteliers like Peter and Hazelmary Bull, or a registrar like Lilian Ladele, you will find that the law no longer upholds the Christian faith when it runs up against the new legal steamroller of homosexual equality.
But now gay rights is about to over-rule reality. Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone MP announced in the safety of the Liberal Democrat 2011 annual conference that pairs of homosexuals will be able to enter into a marriage. A consultation on the mechanics but not the principle will begin in March 2012. The proviso that they will only be able to ‘marry’ at a registry office and not in church is carefully designed to silence opposition from the mainstream denominations – and also from Muslims.
Christians must still oppose this measure and point out the enormity of what is being done. Human Society has understood marriage to be the union of a man and a woman for 6,000 years. With the exception of the decadent West, it is still understood like that all over the world. What the Government is proposing is a seismic shift in the definition of marriage.
It is easy enough to demonstrate the absurdities of the idea. Are two men both going to be ‘bridegrooms’? Lesbian couples often call each other ‘brides’ as in ‘the brides wore matching dresses’ or ‘one of the brides wore a dress and the other a tuxedo.’ We recently reported on two of the more ludicrous recent civil partnerships. And when they are married, will one call him/her-self the ‘husband’ and describe the other as his / her wife? Or will they both be ‘husbands’ or both ‘wives’? Or will they risk an epidemic of nausea by each pretending to be ‘the spouse’ of the other?
Are the Government seriously expecting these sham marriages to be recognised as the real thing when the parties travel overseas? And what of civil partnerships? Are they to be abandoned or retained?
The deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg wrote: “I support gay marriage. Love is the same, straight or gay, so the civil institution should be the same, too. All couples should be able to make that commitment to one another.”
But love is not the same, Nick. The love you have for your wife is expressed sexually. The love you have for your brothers and sisters is not. Homosexuals eroticise a love which should be platonic. This is usually because of unmet needs in childhood, by a lack of affirmation from the parent of the same sex as a man or as a woman. It is not pathological to be emotionally a nine-year old at the age of nine. It is at the age of twenty-nine.
Homosexuals need understanding, and they need healing for the underlying pathologies. That healing may come from the psychiatric profession, but now that most of them have gone like dead fish with the politically-correct flow, the gap should be filled by the Church, ministering the saving and healing power of Jesus Christ. However someone became gay, they do not have to stay gay. That is a choice.
Where this is headed is anyone’s guess. Nine years ago, 41% of Scots agreed with gay marriage. That displays a shocking enough lack of connection with the reality of life.
But today, after just five years of civil partnerships being conducted in the UK, including in Scotland, that figure has risen to 61% in favour. If public opinion can be swayed like that by a new law combined with the preaching of politicians and the media, how long will it be until all but a remnant in Scotland, and in the UK for that matter, are in favour of enshrining in law what God describes as an abomination and of overturning the natural created order? On a dispassionate reading, Sodom was like that. And can a Sodom-esque clamp-down on the freedom of speech of those who disagree be far behind?
The Lord Jesus Christ said (in Mark 10:6-8) that from the beginning of the creation God made us male and female and that is why a man leaves his father and mother to cleave to his wife.
So (1) Jesus believed in creation not in evolution,
(2) He spoke of some kind of marital ceremony in which the wider society is approvingly involved and
(3) He then said ‘they twain shall be one flesh’ and reinforced the point ‘so then they are no more twain, but one flesh’.
And being one flesh is something a pair of homosexuals, two men or two women, can never be. Between them they physically lack the complementary parts of the body necessary for that God-ordained one-flesh union, and their lack of physical complementarity speaks of a lack of emotional compatibility as well. The author and physician David Reuben said ‘homosexuals are trying to solve the puzzle with only half the pieces.’
Given that a marriage has to be consumated to be valid in law, how are two people who do not possess between them the full set of parts of the anatomy necessary for such an act supposed to do that? Or will that requirement be thrown away?
None of these arguments will make any difference to the Governments’ gay rights juggernaut. Facts don’t matter in a post-modern society. But Christians have the right, indeed the duty, to witness to the truth in season and out of season, (and it is very much out of season right now).
READ: Gen 2:23-24, 19:1-25 (see esp v19); Isaiah 1:9; Mark 10:6-8; Romans 1:24-27; I Cor 6:9-11; Rev 22:14-15.
PRAY: For this nation to wake up and come to its senses. For righteousness in the Queen’s ministers or for them to be replaced with men after God’s heart. For compassion and healing for those suffering from same-sex attraction. We have no power or might against the forces of the gay rights lobby in government and the media, but our eyes are on the Lord of heaven and earth who can send a miracle to a praying, believing, active people.
September 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homosexual activists are pressuring PayPal to cut off the accounts of pro-family Christian organizations that oppose the homosexual political agenda and uphold sexual morality, and PayPal is showing signs that it may capitulate to their demands.
The homosexual organization behind the effort, All Out, claims that such organizations as Tradition, Family, and Property, and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), as well as pro-family Christian activist Julio Severo, promote “hate, violence, and intolerance” and are “extremist.”
“Thanks to PayPal, its (sic) easier than ever to send and receive money across currencies and continents – but it is also PayPal’s responsibility to make sure this technology doesn’t fall in the wrong hands. Anti-LGBT extremists all over the world are currently using PayPal to fundraise for their dangerous cause,” writes All Out. “Not only is it against PayPal’s rules to promote promote ‘hate, violence, [and] racial intolerance,’ hate groups also damage PayPal’s brand and credibility. We ask that PayPal join the fight against online hate and immediately shut down the accounts of anti-LGBT extremist groups using the service.”
All Out says that is has collected almost 35,000 signatures on its online petition.
According to the European homosexual news service PinkNews, PayPal has responded by stating, “We take very seriously any cases where a user has incited hatred, violence or intolerance because of a person’s sexual orientation.”
Although it adds, “we also take into account the rights of free speech and freedom of religion,” PayPal reportedly goes on to note, “we regularly review organisations and websites that use our service, and stop working with those that break our Acceptable Use Policy.”
LifeSiteNews.com has created its own online petition at the website ProFamilyFreedom.net, which states: “I protest the attack by homosexual organizations on Christian activists Julio Severo, Americans for Truth About Homosexualty (AFTAH), and Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP). I encourage PayPal to affirm the right of pro-family organizations to use its service and to reject attacks on the Christian faith and other religions that uphold sexual morality and defend family values.”
The campaign has originated in the US, but could easily transfer this side of the water. Please sign the petition to stand up for religious values, conscience and free speech.
