Raj Bhachoo, a Christian Voice member, was arrested, kept in a police cell for hours and charged with “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 following a complaint by the manageress during a leafleting exercise outside the Tesco store in Gravesend, Kent in January 2012
The case was due to be heard by Dartford Magistrates this morning. But on reviewing the evidence and recent legal decisions including that involving Sandown Free Presbyterian Church, the prosecuting barrister offered no evidence.
The magistrates duly dismissed the case.
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, was asked by the defence to give evidence in the case, but, for the second time in a case involving Mr Bhachoo, his evidence was in the event not required.
Mr Green also prepared expert evidence for a case in March of this year when Raj Bhachoo was acquitted after sending a highly critical email to the Stonewall lobby group. A key Stonewall witness failed to turn up in court and the case collapsed.
Michael Phillips, solicitor, represented Raj Bhachoo on both occasions.
Just a week ago, Mr Phillips represented two Christians from the Abort67 group, seeing all charges against them thrown out by magistrates in Brighton. Last February, Michael Overd faced a trial in Taunton after two homosexuals objected to his preaching. Mr Overd, who subsequently joined Christian Voice, was also acquitted.
In September 2006, Stephen Green was himself arrested, locked in the cells for four hours and charged under the same Section 5 by the South Wales Police Minorities Support Unit for handing out evangelistic leaflets at the homosexual Cardiff Mardi Gras. At the subsequent hearing, an embarrassed prosecutor dropped all charges.
Stephen Green said today: ‘Christians just keep winning these Section 5 freedom of speech cases. It is not against the law to preach against sodomy, to tell the public the facts about homosexual lifestyles, nor to display graphic images of the effects of abortion. These things might upset people, but they are not threatening, they are not abusive, they are not insulting and they are not against the law.
‘We actually need no change in the law, but we do need police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service to provide training to officers and prosecutors on the law and on their duty to protect people exercising their freedom of expression.
‘In the abortion case, the police officer who attended admitted in court that the only training he had ever had on the implications of freedom of speech was ten years ago.’
Some years back, we were on the mailing list of the Lucis Trust. They claim to be in touch with ‘the Ascended Masters’ (that’s demons to you and me) and to be working for ‘World Goodwill’ and ‘the planet’. They observe ancient witchcraft festivals and enthuse over the phases of the moon and ‘spiritual energy‘.
The Lucis Trust actually has consultative status as an NGO at the United Nations. Lucis Trust has an international board of trustees. They have been said to include John D Rockefeller and Robert McNamara, but there are no well-known names today. The Lucis Trust Website lists the names of the current trustees. These broadly agree with the ones listed by the UK Charities Commission. The trust spent £495,300 according to its last accounts.
The Lucis Trust was founded by the theosophist Alice Bailey, a disciple of occultist Madame Helena Blavatsky. There is more on Alice Bailey hereas well as some strange stuff about an investment bank. Bailey wrote of the one we call Satan:
‘For it is he who was the “Harbinger of Light,” bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of automaton (Adam) created by Jehovah, as alleged; and he who was first to whisper, “In the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil” — can only be regarded in the light of a Saviour.’
That is Luciferianism in a nutshell, turning Christian theology on its head. The Almighty becomes the bad guy and Lucifer the altruistic bringer of enlightenment.
The Lucis Trust logo symbolises the rising of Lucifer as the morning sun
We also found a glowing reference to the Gates Foundation on the Lucis Trust website. Appropriately, it was in a 2010 report on a conference about money, which the Lucis Trust like (a lot). They talk about ‘the divine circulatory flow’ of money. Naturally, that’s mainly when it comes to them. And it appears that is exactly what money from Gates has done. Strangely, the current webpage omits what we found in a previous gushing version about their donors:
‘Today there is a small but influential minority of responsible and wealthy citizens and organizations who are taking action and showing great leadership in alleviating the current sufferings. The ones we may have heard about are Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, George Soros, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford Foundation, Andrew Carnegie Endowment, as well as many others. These philanthropic efforts are certainly making constructive and positive impacts as well as setting a necessary example to other wealthy billionaires on how money can be channeled towards constructive means to help rebuild a better civilization, restore the divine circulatory flow and heal and uplift people from the scourge of poverty, war and disease.’
United Religions Initiative
Bill Gates, George Soros and the Lucis Trust World Service Fund are all said to have financed the United Religions Initiative. Unsurprisingly, that was an interfaith movement with UN links. It was founded in 1995 by Episcopalian Bishop William Spring.
Apart from Gates, Soros, Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie are key players developing the doctrine of one-world government. They are also spreading the immorality of abortion and sodomy mainly in Africa and Asia. Warren Buffet’s donation of $3.17 billion to the Gates Foundation earlier in 2017 was widely reported. Another sizeable donation in 2012 made Gates the world’s biggest donating foundation, outstripping both Ford and Rockefeller. Warren Buffett is in favour of higher taxes and big government. Additionally, he is pro-abortion, just like Bill and Melinda Gates.
Warren Buffet said of eugenics and abortion giant Planned Parenthood: “If by some magic we could make every child born in this country a wanted child, we would have incredibly fewer problems in all areas of society. The closest thing we have to that magic is Planned Parenthood.” William H Gates Sr, Bill Gates’ father, was head of Planned Parenthood.
Bangladeshi ambassador
A brief and revealing summing-up of the 2010 Lucis conference is here. It was addressed by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury. He was the Bangladeshi ambassador to the United Nations before taking up a post there as UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries. He is therefore a UN insider. The other speaker was one Barbara L. Valocore.
Steve Nation is on the boards of both the Lifebridge Foundation and Lucis Trust UK and is Co-Convenor of the Council of the ‘Spiritual Caucus at the United Nations’
Who is she? She is ‘a long-time student of the Ageless Wisdom‘ and President of the Lifebridge Foundation, Inc. That’s a New Age group, a little like the UK-based Findhorn Foundation. It is based near Rosendale, a town 80 miles up the Hudson river from New York. Lifebridge give grants (promoting their ‘holistic vision’) to groups advocating the environmentalist New Age agenda. One recipient has been the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers. Lifebridge see all creation as alive. Thy even carry a report by biologist Rupert Sheldrake on a summer-solstice conference asking if the sun is conscious. They share two trustees, activist Steve Nation, and his ‘partner’ Barbara Valocore, with the Lucis Trust.
The Lucis Trust organised a Festival for the New Group of World Servers from 21st to 28th December 2012. This happens once every seven years. It is always an important target for our prayer, particularly the culminating full moon. Appropriately enough, the key event was held at the Lifebridge Sanctuary:
‘For the Festival Week, the Rosendale World Service Group will be hosting a gathering at Lifebridge Sanctuary for the duration of the Week (December 21 – 28). The gathering will feature service meditations in support of the New Group of World Servers and study from the Alice Bailey books concentrating on the needs of humanity during this critical time of transition.
‘There will be a public gathering in observation of the Solstice (focused on the New Group of World Servers) for the local community, as well as a public meditation meeting for the full moon. The group staying at the Sanctuary will be meditating during the actual time of the full moon.’
The rainbow diversity flag has had a welcome setback.
In a landmark vote, Australian MPs have overwhelmingly rejected a bill which would have legalised ‘gay marriage’ reports Agence France Press.
The House of Representatives voted down the bill to legalise marriage between same sex couples by 98 to 42, with Labour Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition conservative leader Tony Abbott both voting against it.
During the days of debate on the bill, one senator lost his parliamentary post after referring to sex with animals.
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi asked what the next step would be if the government redefined marriage so that two people of the same sex could ‘marry’.
“The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society,” he told the Senate.
Cory Bernardi
“There are even some creepy people out there… (who) say it is okay to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals. Will that be a future step?”
Former Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull described Mr Bernardi’s comments as “hysterical, alarmist, offensive”.
The Liberal leader Tony Abbott said Mr Bernardi offered to resign his position as his parliamentary secretaryand he had accepted.
Mr Abbott is said to be a staunch Catholic and opinion polls suggest he could become prime minister when an election is held next year.
“I’ve known Cory for a long time. He’s a decent bloke with strong opinions,” said Mr Abbott, but he said his comments had been ill-judged.
“They are views that I don’t share,” Abbott told reporters. “They are views which I think many people will find repugnant.”
Australia does not permit gay marriage, though some states allow civil unions.
Gay rights activists called the decision a “slap on the face,” ABC News reported.
Astonishingly, in view of her vote against gay marriage, Aussie premier Julia Gillard is supporting an Australian bid to host the 2014 homosexual rugby world cup – if anyone can believe such an event actually takes place.
Almighty God appears to think there is a link between sodomy and bestiality, as the book of Leviticus states:
Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Lev 18:23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
The European courts are currently having to navigate through an increasingly complex network of rights, and to adjudicate between competing rights and desires when they bump up against each other.
As I was reflecting on this, Daniel Hannan reminded me of an amusing anecdote that Mark Steyn shared last year. After discussing the absurdities in hate crime legislation, Steyn pointed out how the exact same words can simultaneously be legal or illegal depending on who the perceived victim happens to be. He writes,
…the very same words can be proof of two entirely different hate crimes. Iqbal Sacranie is a Muslim of such exemplary “moderation” he’s been knighted by the Queen. The head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal was interviewed on the BBC and expressed the view that homosexuality was “immoral,” was “not acceptable,” “spreads disease,” and “damaged the very foundations of society.” A gay group complained and Sir Iqbal was investigated by Scotland Yard’s “community safety unit” for “hate crimes” and “homophobia.”
Independently but simultaneously, the magazine of GALHA (the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association) called Islam a “barmy doctrine” growing “like a canker” and deeply “homophobic.” In return, the London Race Hate Crime Forum asked Scotland Yard to investigate GALHA for “Islamophobia.”
Got that? If a Muslim says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for homophobia; but if a gay says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for Islamophobia.
Two men say exactly the same thing and they’re investigated for different hate crimes.
That was taken from Mark Steyn’s article ‘Gagging us Softly.’ The value of his article goes beyond merely drawing attention to the absurd situations which arise when the right of free speech is qualified by the right of minority groups not to be criticized. Steyn also shows a more sinister agenda at work once Westerners grow comfortable having the state micro-regulate their public discourse.
Mark Steyn
Across almost all the Western world apart from America, the state grows ever more comfortable with micro-regulating public discourse—and, in fact, not-so-public discourse: Lars Hedegaard, head of the Danish Free Press Society, has been tried, been acquitted, had his acquittal overruled, and been convicted of “racism” for some remarks about Islam’s treatment of women made (so he thought) in private but taped and released to the world. The Rev. Stephen Boissoin was convicted of the heinous crime of writing a homophobic letter to his local newspaper and was sentenced by Lori Andreachuk, the aggressive social engineer who serves as Alberta’s “human rights” commissar, to a lifetime prohibition on uttering anything “disparaging” about homosexuality ever again in sermons, in newspapers, on radio—or in private e-mails. Note that legal concept: not “illegal” or “hateful,” but merely “disparaging.” Dale McAlpine, a practicing (wait for it) Christian, was handing out leaflets in the English town of Workington and chit-chatting with shoppers when he was arrested on a “public order” charge by Constable Adams, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community-outreach officer. Mr. McAlpine had been overheard by the officer to observe that homosexuality is a sin. “I’m gay,” said Constable Adams. Well, it’s still a sin, said Mr. McAlpine. So Constable Adams arrested him for causing distress to Con¬stable Adams….
In such a climate, time-honored national characteristics are easily extinguished. A generation ago, even Britain’s polytechnic Trots and Marxists were sufficiently residually English to feel the industrial-scale snitching by family and friends that went on in Communist Eastern Europe was not quite cricket, old boy. Now England is Little Stasi-on-Avon, a land where, even if you’re well out of earshot of the gay-outreach officer, an infelicitous remark in the presence of a co-worker or even co-playmate is more than sufficient. Fourteen-year-old Codie Stott asked her teacher at Harrop Fold High School whether she could sit with another group to do her science project as in hers the other five pupils spoke Urdu and she didn’t understand what they were saying. The teacher called the police, who took her to the station, photographed her, fingerprinted her, took DNA samples, removed her jewelry and shoelaces, put her in a cell for three and a half hours, and questioned her on suspicion of committing a Section Five “racial public-order offence.” “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark,” declared the headmaster, Antony Edkins. The school would “not stand for racism in any form.” In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said they took “hate crime” very seriously, and their treatment of Miss Stott was in line with “normal procedure.”…
Restrictions on freedom of speech undermine the foundations of justice, including the bedrock principle: equality before the law. When it comes to free expression, Britain, Canada, Australia, and Europe are ever less lands of laws and instead lands of men—and women, straights and gays, Muslims and infidels—whose rights before the law vary according to which combination of these various identity groups they belong to.
A red-faced Nick Clegg has had to withdraw remarks he was going to make branding opponents of gay marriage “bigots”.
A draft of his speech, circulated to the press in advance of Mr Clegg’s speech to be given to a gathering of homosexual activists last night, had the atheist Deputy Prime Minister saying:
“Continued trouble in the economy gives the bigots a stick to beat use with, as they demand we ‘postpone’ the equalities agenda in order to deal with ‘the things people really care about’.”
An hour later, aides were scrambling around trying to recall the press release, and releasing a sanitised version in which ‘the bigots’ was replaced by ‘some people’
The row brings to mind Gordon Brown’s ‘Bigotgate’ when he described a lifelong Labour supporter, Mrs Gillian Duffy, who happened to mention Eastern Europeans in an exchange on the economy, as ‘just a bigoted woman’.
At the reception, Nick Clegg said:
Contempt for ordinary people – Gordon Brown was embroiled in his own ‘Bigotgate’ scandal after an exchange on the economy and immigration with Labour supporter Gillian Duffy.
‘I am a little bit surprised to see cameras outside the gates for the slightly obscure reason that they expect me to use a word about opponents of gay marriage that I had no intention of using, would never use. It is not the kind of word that I would use.’
Really? Mr Clegg’s speech writers would not write in a word which they knew he would never use. And homosexual rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, among the guests at last night’s reception in central London, said: ‘Quite clearly, some people who oppose same-sex marriage do so because of personal prejudice and intolerance.’
Lord Carey of Clifton said:
‘There will be many Christians and non-Christians who will be highly offended to be called bigots. People who oppose same-sex marriages are doing so on the basis of deeply-held beliefs and we should not be treated in such a way.
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said:
‘In a sense, we should be encouraged that Nick Clegg has considered resorting to name-calling, because people normally do that when they realise they have lost the argument. Marriage is God’s holy institution and man may not change its definition. Marriage involves love and committment, but at its heart is its sexual expression, being ‘one flesh’ as the Bible puts it. At the moment, a marriage must be conusmmated to be valid in law, and consummation involves an complete act of ordinary sexual intercourse.
‘Between them, a pair of homosexuals lack the full set of necessary equipment for that act. Mr Clegg has so far failed to offer the necessary redefinition of the key concept of consummation in a homosexual context. And any such redefinition will affect marriage for everyone. The Government have received 228,000 responses to their consultation, the majority of them against it, and they are blindly pushing on regardless.
‘Those in favour of ‘gay marriage’ say that if two people love each other they should be allowed to get married. Does that apply to a brother and a sister, or a uncle and his niece?’ Nick Clegg has failed to address that point as well. He and David Cameron have lost the argument and lost their own consultation.
‘The fact that they are still stubbornly set on pushing ahead with the destruction of marriage and their proposed use of insulting language shows a contempt for ordinary people as deep as that held by their predecessors.
‘The dictionary definition of bigot is ‘One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.’ Without wishing in any way to insult him, that sounds a fair description of Nick Clegg.’
A No 10 source said: “The prime minister is committed to getting gay marriage through by 2015.”
READ: Matt 19:4 And (Jesus) answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
PRAY: That God continues to sow confusion amongst the Government on this issue. Pray also that David Cameron and Nick Clegg repent and pull back from their ungodly position.
The Anti-Christian Co-op Bank is taking over a large number of Lloyds TSB bank accounts and all Cheltenham & Gloucester customers, forcing Christian customers to look around for some of the alternatives listed in this article.
The branches that will be going over to the Co-op Bank will not be initially be branded as Co-op banks. Such branches will be called TSB Banks as opposed to Lloyds TSB Banks (and will not have the name Co-op included in the title). If the logos and branding and name are similar, the less observant could easily give their trade by mistake to the Co-op and not to Lloyds TSB. The Financial Times reports that the move is not good news for savers.
But the main concern about the Co-op bank itself is the way it discriminates strongly against those Christians who take their faith seriously. See: http://www.repentuk.com/coop.html
Despite their ‘fair trade’ policies, they are clearly not the bank for Christians, nor for that matter the bank for anyone who does not support ‘gay rights.’
Those who will be affected by the Lloyds TSB changes will receive letters through the post advising them if their branch is one of those to be transferred. Customers may then object to the changes and demand that their account is transferred to a Lloyds TSB branch rather than remain with the branch that will automatically become a Co-op owned bank and be called TSB bank. The branches concerned are listed here, (confusingly, in the main list, in order of address not town):
Christians disillusioned with the High Street banks in general have the option of the Reliance Bank for ordinary banking. They are owned by the Salvation Army and 75% of their profits go to the Army’s work among the poor and dispossessed. http://www.reliancebankltd.com/reliancebank.nsf/pghome?openpage
For savings, there is also the Kingdom Bank, owned by the Assemblies of God, Britain’s largest Pentecostal denomination. http://www.kingdombank.co.uk/Funds deposited by savers are lent to Christian projects for the advancement of the Gospel.
2Cor 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Gal 6:10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.
Show the Co-op who’s boss! Join Christian Voice today!
The awards were mainly to applaud people who had advanced the homosexual cause in some way.
Among the awards was an anti-award called ‘Bigot of the Year’ intended to insult and vilify a number of people particularly opposed to the gay rights agenda. Those shortlisted were the respected Sir Brian Souter, Bishop Arthur Roche, Bill Walker MSP, journalist Melanie Phillips, who was the eventual ‘winner’, and Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice.
Stonewall did not even have the courtesy to invite any of those shortlisted for this ‘Bigot of the Year’ award to the dinner. Perhaps they were afraid someone might answer back – bullies never like it when someone stands up to them. Or perhaps social intercourse is just not one of their strong points.
Christian Voice members gave out leaflets about Nationwide’s involvement with Stonewall to the society’s members attending the AGM
The Nationwide’s position is that they are ‘not supportive of the vilification of individuals’ and that they ‘have made this clear to Stonewall’. They have pulled out of sponsoring future events of this kind. However, the Society remains as a member of Stonewall’s ‘Diversity Champions’ programme in which they go a lot further than merely treating all of their employees equally, to which no-one could object. Click ‘Sexual Orientation’ on the Nationwide link here.
Stephen Green is a Nationwide member and went along to the AGM in Manchester on 19th July 2012 to ask the Nationwide Board of Directors the following questions:
(1) How much of your members’ money did you vote to the Stonewall awards dinner?
(2) Did you know the nature of the event you were sponsoring, and were the names of all the awards disclosed to you in advance?
(3) Which Nationwide Board members attended the Stonewall awards dinner?
(4) Whether Nationwide support Stonewall’s aim of the redefinition of marriage?
(5) When will you apologise for bank-rolling an event which insulted and humiliated not just a humble Nationwide member like me, but respected public figures? and
(6) When will you be big enough simply to say sorry to the individuals concerned?
Graham Beale, Nationwide Chief Executive, supplied the answers:
(1) They gave £60,000 to Stonewall for the dinner (which did not stop the greedy lobby group from charging £180 a ticket) and they gave £5,000 as a prize to the ‘Community Group of the Year’ which turned out to be ‘UK Black Pride’.
(2) They didn’t find out the names of the awards until afterwards (which seems rather inept – and they must have known the name of the Community Group award in order to provide the prize).
(3) No Nationwide board members attended (very wise).
(4) Nationwide has no corporate position on the redefinition of marriage (unlike Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s – but more of them at another time).
Christian Voice Press Release – 10.40 hrs 14th July 2012
The Nationwide Building Society is to be challenged over its association with the Stonewall ‘Bigot of the Year’ award at its AGM this coming Thursday.
Stephen Green, who was shortlisted for the award last November along with Sir Brian Souter, Bishop Arthur Roche, Bill Walker MSP and the eventual ‘winner’ journalist Melanie Phillips, plans to put down a question at the AGM, to be held in Manchester at 11am at the Bridgewater Hall in Lower Mosley Street, Manchester, M2 3WS. Doors open at 10am and any Nationwide member with at least £100 in savings or owed on a mortgage can attend.
‘Nationwide sponsored the 2011 Stonewall awards dinner, which did not stop the greedy lobby group charging £180 a ticket (£150 plus VAT). I intend to ask how much money Nationwide gave, whether they knew the nature of the event they were sponsoring, whether they support the redefinition of marriage, one of Stonewall’s key aims, and when they plan to apologise for bank-rolling an event which insulted and humiliated not just a humble Nationwide member like me, but respected public figures.
‘In particular, Sir Brian was awarded a knighthood by Her Majesty in June 2011, just months before he was vilified by Stonewall.
‘Nationwide have said they are “not supportive of the vilification of individuals” and that they “have made this clear to Stonewall”. They have pulled out of sponsoring future events, while remaining ‘members’ of Stonewall. No-one on the Nationwide Board of Directors has yet been man enough to apologise to any of the individuals concerned, and I think they should.
‘Of course, not one of those shortlisted was invited by Stonewall to attend, which was a grave discourtesy. But as “Bigot of the Year” is merely an attempt by Stonewall to bully and humiliate someone in public life, Stonewall won’t ever find the courage to invite those shortlisted for fear that the winner might tell the assembled gays a few home truths.
‘It seems homosexuality can only advance by insulting and browbeating its opponents. But I hope the Nationwide experience will send a message through the world of business that the Stonewall awards dinner is a toxic brand.’
ENDS
For further information, phone Stephen Green on 07931 490050.
Note: You can send an email to the Nationwide Chief Executive, Graham Beale:
The six-colour rainbow ‘diversity’ flag being carried in today’s London ‘Gay Pride’ parade.
A scaled-down version of Gay Pride, without the usual motorised floats, snaked through London earlier today, funded by Tesco and the Mayor of London. BBC Report here.
Homosexual employees of Tesco and KPMG took part in the parade, while bankers were represented by Barclays and Lloyds TSB. The prison service, the police, and the environment agency were among those representing Her Majesty’s Government. Amnesty International also took part.
The parade passes down Whitehall in central London, near to government offices and 10 Downing Street
The Stonewall lobby group is working overtime trying to present homosexuals as normal people whose love should be recognised by allowing them to ‘marry’, but even in today’s scaled-back event, sex and bizarre forms of sexual expression were to the fore as usual.
The parade featured drag queens, people with their backsides on show, men in what we understand is ‘bondage gear’, sexually-charged costumes, the hostility of Stonewall and Queer Resistance, under-age participants and people whose tee-shirts said: ‘I’ll bet you’re thinking about sex’.
It was an in-your-face offensive onslaught of aggression, intolerance, depravity and division designed to intimidate and assault the mind.
It comes as no surprise that people with such a slender hold on morality should also be incapable of financial stability.
Gay-friendly organisations and individuals failed to come up with money they had promised the organisers. Pride London admitted the funding shortfall which led to the scaling-back of the parade had arisen “not because we have a lack of pledged funds, but because we were unable to collect enough funds from those pledged to provide the strict financial assurances”.
Aggressive and intolerant: ‘Queer Resistance’ activists leave London’s Trafalgar Square in today’s ‘pride’ parade.
It was those financial shortages which led to a panic last month culminating in the Greater London Authority, the Metropolitan Police, Westminster Council, London Fire Brigade and Transport for London asking, for the first time, for “concrete assurances” that Pride London had the cash to pay the upfront costs associated with the event.
Despite £100,000 of public money from the Mayor of London’s office and £30,000 from Tesco and an offer of support from Diageo, the makers of Smirnoff vodka, the event in its original form became ‘unsalvageable’.
As a result, the parade was scaled down to a ‘protest’ march in which floats could not be allowed, the start time was brought forward by two hours and street parties were banned.
Participants in this year’s London ‘Gay Pride’. They and the children who saw them need our prayers.
Normal people will be shocked and saddened that fellow human beings, made in the image of God, could fall so low – and that certain of our politicians encourage them. Earlier in the day, our youth worker helped with the giving out of evangelistic leaflets near the start of the parade. Please pray for souls to be saved from hell through that witness.
Please pray also for the many children who took part in the parade and viewed it from the pavement. May the Lord heal and protect them and forgive their parents for assaulting young minds with such images as we have seen.
Join Christian Voice today and stand up for righteousness in the land:
The website of Richard Dawkins is full of the story of a pensioner in Lincolnshire who has allegedly been told by police not to display an ‘insulting’ poster rubbishing religion.
Atheists have been desparate to find just one case where the police try to use Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 against one of their own, in order to counterbalance the multitude of recorded heavy-handed police actions against Christian preachers.
Now they think they have it. John Richards, of Vauxhall Road, Boston, has been told that if he displays in his window a modest A4 landscape paper with the words ‘Religions are fairy stories for adults’ he could be in breach of the Section’s provisions which state that:
‘a person is guilty of an offence if they display a sign which is threatening or abusive or insulting with the intent to provoke violence or which may cause another person harassment, alarm or distress.’
The Boston Standard makes it clear that Lincolnshire Police have said they will only attend if someone makes a complaint. In a statement, they said: ‘If a complaint is received by the police in relation to a sign displayed in a person’s window, an officer would attend and make a reasoned judgement about whether an offence had been committed under the Act.’
So yet again, Section 5 is not the great bogey-man some are pretending it is. The Police and CPS quite often prosecute Christians under it – this author was prosecuted under Section 5 in 2006 – but to our knowledge, with the exception of Harry Hammond in Bournemouth, and his was a special case, not least because he died before an appeal could be heard – not one person has been convicted.
We need to realise the true reason the National Secular Society want Section 5 amended is that the constant stream of stories of police clamp-downs on freedom of speech against Christians is a thorn in their flesh, garnering public sympathy and publicity for the Christian viewpoint.
Unlike Peter Tatchell, who although wrong is at least honest, It is not remotely because they champion freedom of speech for their opponents.
For most people, and certainly most Christians, the truly laughable aspect of this poster is that it is written by a man who, if he is like every atheist this author has met, believes the fairy stories of abiogenesis and evolution.
If he is true to his preconceptions and if he has actually thought about it, by rejecting the reality of a creator God, John Richards believes that nothing exploded and became everything, that life just happened spontaneously, that fish grew legs and lungs for no apparent reason and decided to walk around on the sea-shore, that whales, fed up with life on land, swivelled their spines round, grew flippers, developed blow-holes and resistance to water pressure and flopped back into the sea, that bats were rats who grew wings (overnight or over millions of years and how did they get around with no front legs and emergent non-functioning wings?), and so on and so on into millions of totally farcical scenarios.
The Bible says: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction (Proverbs 1:7).
The truth is that the poster is truly insulting. It is an insult to the intelligence. But what do you expect from an atheist?
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A few days ago, people calling in to Premier Radio were challenged to say what was wrong with David Cameron’s plans for ‘gay marriage’. In the main, they knew it was wrong, but they could not articulate why. You may feel the same, but you don’t have to be tongue-tied any longer.
Our pro-marriage briefing The Trivilisation of Matrimony opposes Cameron’s ‘gay marriage’ plans, firstly from a biblical perspective, and then by unpacking all the other arguments (see contents below). We are not ashamed of the Cross in Christian Voice, and the words of Jesus Christ on this issue form the cornerstone of our objections. We are so keen to get this accessible 16-page booklet into your hands, we are giving it away free if you join Christian Voice today.
Join Christian Voice today, and get The Trivilisation of Matrimony and our latest newsletter, leading on the ‘gay marriage’ issue, absolutely free! We’ll also send you Britain in Sin, which lays out the anti-Christian legislation passed in the last sixty years and our information-packed briefings Understanding Islam and Labelling Halal – all by return of post. You won’t want to miss any of those! Join over the weekend and we’ll have everything in the post for you on Monday.
A blog on the Daily Telegraph has shown how the bus advert storm has highlighted a homosexual activist U-Turn.
Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked, says it used to be ‘the gays’ who emphasised their choice of sexuality and said they had a right to whatever orientation and lifestyle they wanted.
Now, he says, organisations like Stonewall have switched their position. Now it is all: ‘Be nice to poor us; we cannot change who we are; we are stuck like it; get over it!’
He also says that nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Christians held to the determinist position, but that they have switched around as well. He is on less sure ground there, although it depends on which theology a certain Christian holds. The evangelicals, such as the prison psychiatrist of Liverpool nick in the 1950s, Dr F H Brisby, who wrote an article for the BMA cataloguing homosexuals who had changed which was submitted to the Wolfenden Committee, have always maintained that Christ can heal and transform our pathological nature.
But as for ‘the gays’, he is bang on target. When I researched my book ‘The Sexual Dead End’, I found a strong emphasis amongst homosexual writers of the 1970s and 1980s on sexual freedom and the right to choose our ‘orientation’. Agreed, it was strongest amongst the lesbians, where ‘going gay’ is seen as a logical feminist rejection of what they see as a male-dominated society.
Books like ‘Pink Triangles’ and ‘With downcast gays’ had a theme of sexual freedom, but it was at its strongest in the Gay Liberation Front Manifesto. In other words it was the radical end of homosexual activism which emphasised freedom of choice, while the political savvies saw that determinism was a better way to achieve their aims.
All the same, Leo Abse, when bringing in the Sexual Offences Bill 1967, which started the whole gay machine rolling, attributed the curse, as he put it, of homosexuality to a lad growing up without a father figure with whom to identify. The lack of a proper identification as a member of one’s one sex is still seen as one of the routes into homosexuality by conservative psychiatric professionals – and Christians in healing ministries, today.
Homosexual behaviour was looked upon as just a matter of sin until people like Carl Ulrichs and Magnus Hirschfield came along in the l880s and proposed the ‘third sex’ idea. Sigmund Freud opposed their determinism and rejected a genetic or hormonal predisposition in a move which was catastrophic to homosexual political aspirations.
It was when Simon Le Vay found differences in the brains of homosexual men as against a heterosexual control group that the determinists got really exited, despite LeVay himself admitting:
“It’s important to stress what I didn’t find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain (as quoted in Byrd, et al., 2001).”
Hard on Le Vay’s heels came Bailey and Pillard’s ‘gay twins’ in 1992/1993 and Dean Hamer’s ‘gay gene’ in 1993. Now the determinists and the homosexual politicos were cooking. Hamer’s results have not been replicated, and he didn’t claim to have found a ‘gay gene’ responsible for all homosexuality either.
So to come right up to the present, the Christians behind the proposed bus ads are emphasising what gay activists were in the 1980s, that a homosexual lifestyle is chosen, learnt behaviour. Where they differ is in mainataining that such a lifestyle is not a good thing and that the underlying pathologies can be dealt with and a person restored to how God intended him or her to be through the healing power of Jesus Christ.
And it works; men and women have walked away from the homosexual lifestyle and had their orientation changed by Jesus Christ. Their stories are the ones which cannot be allowed to be heard in today’s politically correct climate, but they will not go away.
And it is because Christian healing is such a political time-bomb that Stonewall have to reject it, with all the determist fervour they can muster.
The Conservative Mayor of London has banned London buses from carrying adverts promoting an ex-gay ministry.
Boris Johnson, who is running for re-election next month, told Transport for London to pull the adverts booked by two conservative Anglican groups within two hours of the story about the adverts appearing in the Guardian.
The ads were due to run on 24 buses on five routes and were booked on behalf of the Core Issues Trust whose leader, Mike Davidson, believes “homoerotic behaviour is sinful”.
Core Issues Trust funds “reparative therapy” for gay Christians, which it claims can “develop their heterosexual potential”. The campaign was also backed by Anglican Mainstream.
The advert was due to say: “Not gay! Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it!”
It was an obvious and timely send-up of the Stonewall homosexual lobby group’s bus adverts which say “Some people are gay – get over it!”
The Christian groups used the same black, red and white colour scheme as Stonewall and in a statement announcing the campaign accused it of promoting the “false idea that there is indisputable scientific evidence that people are born gay”.
Johnson, who contacted the Guardian to announce he was stopping the adverts within two hours of their contents becoming public, said: “London is one of the most tolerant cities in the world and intolerant of intolerance. It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is an illness that someone recovers from and I am not prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses.”
The Christian groups insisted the advert had been cleared with Transport for London (TfL), which is chaired by the mayor. Davidson said: “I didn’t realise censorship was in place. We went through the correct channels and we were encouraged by the bus company to go through their procedures. They okayed it and now it has been pulled.”
CBS Outdoor, the media company that sells the bus advertising sites, said the ad had been passed for display by the Committee of Advertising Practice. It is understood TfL was due to make around £10,000 for allowing the adverts to run on about two dozen buses across five routes.
Mayor Johnson’s decision will fuel concerns over religious discrimination by showing that there is one rule for homosexual activists and another for Christians.
The move by Boris is also certain to be seen as anti-Christian by an electorate which includes a large number of evangelical Christians. Half of all Christians in London are black African or Caribbean and other fast-growing churches are heavily evangelical or pentecostal.
David Cameron has quoted from the Gospel of Luke and spoken of ‘we’ Christians at a pre-Easter reception at Downing Street.
Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell famously didn’t ‘Do God’, but Mr Cameron is making rather a habit of it. As Easter Sunday approaches, Mr Cameron has decided to “do God” in public, as Alastair Campbell might say.
He said there were three reasons why the King James Bible was as relevant today as any point in its history.
“First, the King James Bible has bequeathed a body of language that permeates every aspect of our culture and heritage. Second, just as our language and culture is steeped in the Bible, so too is our politics.
“Third, we are a Christian country. And we should not be afraid to say so. Let me be clear: I am not in any way saying that to have another faith – or no faith – is somehow wrong.”
“This is the time when, as Christians, we remember the life, sacrifice and living legacy of Christ. The New Testament tells us so much about the character of Jesus; a man of incomparable compassion, generosity, grace, humility and love. These are the values that Jesus embraced, and I believe these are values people of any faith, or no faith, can also share in, and admire.
“It is values like these that make our country what it is – a place which is tolerant, generous and caring. A nation which has an established faith, that together is most content when we are defined by what we are for, rather than defined by what we are against. In the book of Luke, we are told that Jesus said, ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’ – advice that when followed makes for a happier, and better society for everyone.”
He told the assembled guests that he welcomed a Christian “fightback”. He said: “I think there’s something of a fightback going on, and we should welcome that. The values of the Bible, the values of Christianity, are the values that we need.”
Interestingly, this is what Jesus said about marriage, which Mr Cameron wants to change into a ‘gay’ version:
Mar 10:6 “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said:
“The last verse, Mark 10:9, is normally taken to refer to individual marriages, which people in Britain today set aside as a routine. I’ve been on the receiving end of divorce on demand. Some fifty percent of marriages are now being put asunder because one party simply decides to walk out.
“But David Cameron wants to put asunder the whole institution of marriage as ordained in the beginning by God Almighty. In 2007 he voted for the Sexual Orientation Goods and Services Regulations which have been used against Christian hoteliers operating the values of the Bible, yet now he urges a ‘fightback’ against secularism.
“David Cameron voted to abolish the blasphemy laws in May 2008, which provided a foundation for a culture of respect for both God and man. In the same month he voted to allow animal/human hybrid embryos. A day later he voted to allow abortion – or the murder of children in the womb – at 16 weeks gestation, a time when every organ and every brain function is in place and operating. It was good that he quoted Christ’s ‘golden rule’ from Luke 6:13 (and Matthew 7:12) but he would not allow to be done to him what he allows to be done to children in the womb.
“It is a good beginning to call for Christian values and to urge a Christian fight-back, but Mr Cameron’s thinking needs to be joined up. He needs to be transformed by the renewing of his mind. How can he in all seriousness urge a ‘fight-back’ against the marginalisation of Christianity and against attempts to ban the wearing of crosses and crucifixes when the Home Office is fighting in the European Court to uphold exactly such a ban?
“David Cameron is right that the values of Christianity are the values that we need’ but he needs our prayers to realise that he cannot pick and choose from the Bible or from the teachings of the Lord. Yes, respect for property helps stop youth looting from shops. Yes, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you helps maintain order in society.
“But keeping a few of Christ’s commandments while breaking a raft of others is to break them all, as the Apostle James points out.
“A little like some of the church today, Mr Cameron overdoes the love and compassion of Christ, but shies away from his laws and judgments. But even then he is selective. He likes being compassionate to homosexuals to the extent of overturning God’s holy institution of marriage, but he doesn’t want a lot of compassion to be shown to last summer’s rioters, or for that matter to the disabled people being made redundant by Remploy.
“Napoleon liked religion when it maintained peace and order, and not when it challenged his assumed right to autocratic rule. Such a convenient approach seems to be catching to leaders.
“I repeat, David Cameron needs our prayers; and a few letters might not go amiss either.”
This Sunday, 18th March 2012, is Mothers’ Day (or Mothering Sunday for the more old-fashioned among us). But if the Government get their way and enact ‘Gay Marriage’, mother and father could be renamed ‘Parent A’ and ‘Parent B’ on birth certificates.
According to Labour peer Lord Brennan QC, the Stonewall homosexual lobby group have said the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ should be replaced by ‘parties to a marriage’, even while saying homosexuals want to call each other ‘husbands’ and ‘wives’. And we know that what Stonewall wants from the Con-Lib Coalition, Stonewall gets.
Lord Brennan says that in Spain, where ‘gay marriage’ was introduced in 2005, ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’ were replaced on birth certificates by ‘Progenitor A’ and ‘Progenitor B’ the following year. We must not believe the Government is they say a similar thing (probably ‘Parent A’ and ‘Parent B’) cannot happen here.
Never forget, in October 2000, Home Secretary Jack Straw said: “Marriage is about a union for the procreation of children, which by definition can only happen between a heterosexual couple. So I see no circumstances in which we would ever bring forward proposals for so-called gay marriages.” But that was when he was laying the ground for the Civil Partnership Bill and trying not to frighten the conservative horses.
David Pollock is President of the European Humanist Federation
In a speech praising the march of the secular state, European Humanist Federation president David Pollock pointed to the murderous French Revolution as a glowing example of secularism in action.
A report on the speech was published by the European Humanist Federation on the first of this month, in an article titled, ‘All states in Europe are moving towards secularism.’ The article indeed the whole website has now gone but it cited their President saying that all the states of Europe are slowly making progress towards becoming truly ‘secular.’
Unlike many who brandish around the label ‘secular’ as a panacea of all ills, expecting the rest of us to grasp what they mean by such an ambiguous term, President Pollock has done us the courtesy of defining exactly what he means (oh, and he does think it’s a panacea of all ills).
In his speech (which could at one time be read in its entirety here) but now has to be gleaned from his other Guardian offerings HERE and HERE, the late Mr Pollock said that a secular state is a state that is “neutral as between different religions and beliefs…not taking sides for or against religion or atheism, for or against one belief or another.” Secularism as such “is the best guarantor we have of freedom of religion or belief.”
While we must appreciate the clear definition, there are two immediate problems that come to mind. The first is a problem of basic logic, the second is a problem of history.
The logical problem is that it is incoherent to speak of government being neutral towards religion and non-religion, or towards belief and non-belief. Frederick Mark Gedicks explained why this was in an article for the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, titled, ‘Religions, Fragmentations, and Doctrinal Limits.’ In the article Mr Gedicks explored the logical impossibility in the very concept of a government adopting a neutral posture towards religion and non-religion. While he was writing in the context of American government, his observations are equally pertinent to the question of secularism in Europe:
I mean, really, what sense can one possibly make of a rule that requires the government to remain neutral between a proposition and its negation? One may agree or disagree about what it could mean to be ‘neutral’ between various religions, but it is at least possible to have a sensible conversation about this. By contrast, there has always been something decidedly weird about the requirement that the government be neutral between religion and nonreligion, or belief and unbelief. Indeed, the requirement seems to constitute empirical proof that even the dumbest things can start to make sense if they’re repeated often enough.
Consider then what government neutrality might mean in the context of professional baseball. It is, of course, completely sensible to require that Congress be neutral between the Red Sox and the Yankees, or that the California Legislature be neutral between the A’s, the Angels, the Dodgers, the Giants, and the Padres, or, indeed, that Congress and all of the state legislatures be neutral with respect to all thirty major league baseball teams. But what could it possibly mean for Congress and the states to be neutral as between baseball and ‘not-baseball’?
For starters, I suppose, this would mean that baseball could not be treated any differently than not-baseball. So, Congress could not grant an exemption from the antitrust laws to baseball unless not-baseball got one, too. It would, therefore, be crucial to ascertain the referent of not-baseball. Would it be the National Basketball Association? Well, it is clearly not-baseball. The American Ballet Theatre? Also not-baseball. Fly-fishing? Watching public television? Cutting my lawn? All not-baseball. The Southern Cal defensive team against Vince Young in the 2006 Rose Bowl? Still not-baseball (and also not-defense).
Logically, ‘not-baseball’ encompasses everything except ‘baseball.’ Accordingly, neutrality between baseball and not-baseball requires that every activity in the United States be exempted, like baseball, from the anti-trust laws and more generally, that every activity in the United States be treated the same as baseball. Not only is this nonsensical from a policy standpoint, it is nonsensical from any standpoint.
Get the picture? If we are really serious about government being ‘neutral’ with respect to religion and non-religion, then our laws would have to interact with the entire portion of reality that comes under the “not religion” category (from the colour of my shoes down to the screw that popped out of my computer earlier today) in the exact same way that government acts towards religion, even as neutrality with respect to baseball would require that the state interacts with the Dodgers in the exact same way that it interacts with the Yankees (American teams, but I trust you get the picture). Even putting aside the problem that to decide what goes in the non-religion category is first to presuppose certain tacit religious presuppositions, we might ask whether our secularist policy-makers have really given adequate thought to what a consistent application of such neutrality would look like in practice. I think it’s safe to say that they haven’t.
But there is another problem with Pollock’s position, and it revolves around his claim that by (supposedly) not taking sides for or against religion or atheism, one belief or another, a secular state is the best guarantor we have of individual liberty and religious freedom. Putting aside the problem that belief in the fact that the state should not take sides about beliefs is itself a belief and therefore fails to conform to its own criteria (a point that Greg Koukl helpfully reminds us about in his work on The Myth of Moral Neutrality), Pollock’s assertion fails on a purely historical level.
Though there are exceptions we could point to, broadly speaking it has been those nations which vigorously affirmed their Christian heritage that have most successfully safe-guarded personal liberties, including the freedom of other religions to practice their faiths. This is a point that even David Cameron was bound to acknowledge in the remarks he made in a speech on the King James’ Bible:
The alternative of moral neutrality should not be an option. You can’t fight something with nothing. Because if we don’t stand for something, we can’t stand against anything…. The Bible has helped to shape the values which define our country…. Yes, they are Christian values. And we should not be afraid to acknowledge that. But they are also values that speak to us all – to people of every faith and none. And I believe we should all stand up and defend them. Those who oppose this usually make the case for secular neutrality. They argue that by saying we are a Christian country and standing up for Christian values we are somehow doing down other faiths. And that the only way not to offend people is not to pass judgement on their behaviour. I think these arguments are profoundly wrong…. those who say being a Christian country is doing down other faiths simply don’t understand that it is easier for people to believe and practise other faiths when Britain has confidence in its Christian identity. Many people tell me it is much easier to be Jewish or Muslim here in Britain than it is in a secular country like France. Why? Because the tolerance that Christianity demands of our society provides greater space for other religious faiths too.
The key point here is that “it is easier for people to believe and practise other faiths when Britain has confidence in its Christian identity.” This point was developed in scholarly depth by historian John Coffey for his 2003 Jubilee Centre report ‘The myth of secular tolerance.’
Coffey showed convincingly that modern notions like tolerance and liberty are not modern notions at all, but arise directly out of the Christian roots of our society. By contrast, he shows that those nations which have attempted to be completely secular (for example, revolutionary France) have usually come down as the enemies of freedom. Coffey concluded his excellent article with the following remark:
The myth of secular tolerance is seriously flawed. There is no good reason to suppose that secular people are immune from the temptation to suppress or silence ‘the other’. Indeed, in practice secularists have often been highly intolerant. Moreover, although the church has sometimes turned aside from the way of Christ by resorting to persecution, the Christian Gospel was one of the principal sources of the rise of religious toleration. The myth of secular tolerance offers a convenient excuse for ignoring the truth claims of Jesus, and it provides a useful propaganda tool for those who wish to discredit the church and marginalise the Christian voice in contemporary debate.
This important historical point is being completely overlooked by David Pollock and his fellow secularists at the European Humanist Federation. One of the most revealing aspects of Mr Pollock’s speech was actually his appeal to history. Consider the following statement from near the beginning of his talk:
From the time of the Westphalian settlement, when states stopped trying to impose their religion on other states in the wars of religion and decided instead that cuius regio, eius religio, governments have taken sides on what religion their citizens should follow and have only slowly come to concede individual liberty.
I don’t dispute Mr Pollock’s claim that government should not take sides on what religion their citizens should follow. Nor do I know any Christian thinker who seriously believes that the government should coerce people to follow the Christian faith. However, the subtext to Pollock’s argument is interesting because it reinforces the standard redemption narrative of the modern state. It is a redemption narrative which goes something like this: throughout the history of the world, the alliance of religion and politics has been the cause of numerous wars and acts of violence. Following the close of the 30 Years War in the 17th century and then the Enlightenment in the 18th century, the Modern West has been struggling to build a foundation of peace based on the separation of religion and politics. This struggle has culminated in the salvation wrought by the modern state.
We find this myth all over the place. Charles Kimball’s reflected it in his book When Religion Becomes Evil when he wrote, “It is somewhat trite, but nevertheless sadly true, to say that more wars have been waged, more people killed, and these days more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history.”
Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee echoed this myth when she wrote in the Guardian that “The horrible history of Christianity shows that whenever religion grabs temporal power it turns lethal. Those who believe theirs is the only way, truth and light will kill to create their heavens on earth if they get the chance.”
The reality is that this common idea that religion causes violence (an idea on which the redemptive motifs of the modern state presuppose) hinges on a basic category confusion. In an article for the ‘Harvard Divinity School titled ‘Does Religion Cause Violence?‘, William Cavanaugh showed convincingly that in order for the notion that religion is a chief cause of violence to carry any weight, we would first need to coherently distinguish religion from other possible causes of violence. But can we even do this without serious anachronism? “The problem” Cavanaugh writes, “is that religion was not considered something separable from such political institutions until the modern era, and then primarily in the West. What sense could be made of separating out Egyptian or Roman “religion” from the Egyptian or Roman “state”? Is Aztec “politics” to blame for their bloody human sacrifices, or is Aztec “religion” to blame?” Cavanaugh continues, drawing on the work of Canadian scholar of comparative religions, Wilfred Cantwell Smith:
As Wilfred Cantwell Smith showed in his landmark 1962 book, The Meaning and End of Religion, “religion” as a discrete category of human activity separable from “culture,” “politics,” and other areas of life is an invention of the modern West. In the course of a detailed historical study of the concept “religion,” Smith was compelled to conclude that in premodern Europe there was no significant concept equivalent to what we think of as “religion,” and furthermore there is no “closely equivalent concept in any culture that has not been influenced by the modern West.”
If it is true that our contemporary notion of ‘religion’ is a comparatively recent phenomenon, then we should be cautious about imposing it retroactively onto the past when claiming that throughout history ‘religion’ functioned as a chief cause of violence.
But let’s continue unpacking Mr. Pollock’s speech:
That slow progress, marked by significant events such as the English civil war, the American declaration of independence and the French revolution, led by stages, via finally the collective determination to allow no repeat of Nazism, to the European Convention on Human Rights and religious freedom.
But no state has fully followed through the implications of individual freedom of religion or belief.
It is especially curious to see Pollock invoking the example of the French Revolution as being among the seminal developments leading up to the freedom that modern Europeans supposedly enjoy today. (One might also want to quibble with his inclusion of the English civil war, which resulted in a theocracy of radical Puritans that hardly led to more religious freedom for the people of Britain but less. Heck, they couldn’t even cook plumb puddings on Christmas day without getting into trouble with the police!) Let’s do a reality check about the French revolution. This was a time when there was a deliberate de-Christianization policy that included
The implementation of a new calendar to replace the Christian one. The calendar, which was adopted in 1793 and used for the next 12 years, employed a ten day week (in a 10 day week, no one could ever know which day was Sunday) and had 1792 (the year Louis XVI was taken into custody) as year 1. This was known as ‘the year of liberty.’
The dispossession, deportation and brutal martyrdom of thousands of clergy
Christians being denied freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of thought if it contravened the secular humanist ideology of the revolution.
The criminalization of all religious education
The elimination of all Christian symbols from the public sphere, including removing the word ‘saint’ from street names and destroying or defacing churches and religious monuments
The replacing of Christian holidays and symbols with civic and revolutionary cults like the ‘Cult of Reason’ and ‘Cult of the Supreme Being.’ A statue to the goddess Reason was even erected and worshiped in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November 1793.
This does not even include the more ubiquitous effects of the French Revolution. Indeed, as I point out in my forthcoming book Saints and Scoundrels, “The French Revolution left a legacy of civil war and international conflict in its wake that would last for the next twenty-five years,”
Given the legacy of totalitarianism, intolerance and thought control associated with the French Revolution, we might well ask why the president of the European Humanist Federation is appealing to revolutionary France as being seminal to the European Convention on Human Rights and religious freedom. At first I thought maybe he meant that the “slow progress” he is after occurred as a result of Europeans trying to avoid the errors of the French Revolution. Alas, no, that is not what he means. Just to be clear, let’s carefully review his words:
That slow progress, marked by significant events such as the English civil war, the American declaration of independence and the French revolution, led by stages, via finally the collective determination to allow no repeat of Nazism, to the European Convention on Human Rights and religious freedom.
But no state has fully followed through the implications of individual freedom of religion or belief.
Maybe Mr Pollock’s appeal to the French revolution wasn’t a mistake. Maybe that’s precisely the point. Perhaps Pollock would like to see some measure of de-Christianization policies occurring within contemporary Europe. Reading a bit further in his speech it seems that this is exactly what he wants. For example, he pointed out that a particular threat to European secularism was the fact that the Roman Catholic church enjoys a 88% hold in Croatia or the Eastern Orthodox church to which 76% of Bulgarians belong. The thrust of his argument was breathtakingly simple: secularism is good, but if churches are too strong then this represents a threat to secularism; therefore, it is bad for churches to be too strong.
Er…ok.
Despite setbacks such as European churches being too strong, Pollock takes heart from the fact that Europe is becoming more secular. But what does this secularity look like in practice? Here’s a few examples for starters, taken from an article we ran in the Christian Voice newsletter back in December of last year:
Bishop of Chester: questioned over his views on homosexuality by Cheshire police in November 2003 after he said that psychiatrists could help homosexuals to re-orientate themselves. The Crown Prosecution Service eventually dropped the case saying the Bishop had committed no crime.
Lynette Burrows: author who was interviewed by the police in December 2005 after she expressed disapproval of homosexual adoption on a talk show. The policewoman who talked to Mrs Burrows said that a ‘homophobic incident’ had been reported against her and that it would be kept on record by the police.
Joe and Heather Roberts: a couple who were interrogated by Lancashire police in December 2005 after complaining to their local council in Fleetwood (Wyre Borough Council) about council tax money being spent on promoting gay rights. Both the Police and the council at the time refused to admit they were wrong. After the threat of legal action, the Council and the Police apologised to the Roberts and settled out of court.
John Mitchell: Scottish fireman who refused to march at a gay pride (Pride Scotia) event along with several other firemen in 2006. He won a legal battle with his employer, the Strathclyde Fire And Rescue Service, for unfair punishment. The case against him and the other fireman involved was overturned at an industrial tribunal. The fire service admitted not taking into account his religious beliefs. Mr Mitchell received damages and an apology from the fire service.
Stephen Green: Arrested and detained in police station for handing out evangelistic tracts at a gay pride festival in Cardiff. Police said the arrest, which occurred in September 2006, was because the tracts Mr Green was distributing contained Bible verses about homosexuality.
Samantha Devine: Catholic schoolgirl banned from wearing a crucifix to school on health and safety grounds. On 12 January 2007 she vowed to defy the cross ban that had been issued by the Robert Napier School in Gillingham, Kent, even if it meant that she would be expelled from school. Students from other religions were allowed to wear symbols of their faith.
Gary McFarlane: Christian counsellor sacked from his job with Relate in 2008 because he confided that he would not be comfortable counselling homosexual couples about sexual problems. Relate conceded that they were wrong to sack Mr McFarlane without giving him notice, but he still didn‘t get his job back and the Tribunal ruling did not go in his favour.
Iris Robinson: Wife of Irish First Minister Peter Robinson investigated by the Serious Crimes Branch of the PSNI (Northern Ireland Police Force) for speaking out against homosexuality in June 2008.
Caroline Petrie: Nurse from Weston Super Mare suspended in December 2008 after offering to pray for the person she was caring for. The suspension was removed after a storm of protest.
Pilgrim Homes: had £13,000 of funding removed by Brighton Council in December 2008 because the home refused to ask its elderly Christian residents every three months if they were homosexual. Funding was only restored when Pilgrim Homes promised to ask the residents about their sexual orientation on admission.
The Earl of Devon (Hugh Courtenay): Had his licence to hold wedding ceremonies at Powderham Castle near Exeter revoked by Devon County Council in January 2009. The justification for removing his licence was that the Earl’s Christian beliefs prevented him from allowing civil partnership ceremonies to be held on his property.
Julia Robinson: Head of Meersbrook Bank Community Primary School in Sheffield was accused of being a racist by some of the parents of the school, because she objected to Muslim-only assemblies. As a result she was forced to resign from her job at the school in February 2009
Jasmine and Jennie Cain: Jasmine, 5, was reprimanded in February 2009 for explaining to a classmate that Jesus saves people from hell. Her mother, Jennie, was then suspended from her job at the school and threatened with the sack after the school discovered she had emailed a prayer request about the matter to friends.
Lilian Ladele: Christian Registrar who faced the sack because she asked if she could be exempt from registering civil partnership. Even though she won the case against Islington Council, the Employment Appeal Tribunal overturned the case and ruled against her.
Unnamed Foster Mother: struck off the foster care register when a 16-year-old Muslim girl she was caring for converted of her own free will to Christianity. This foster mother had successfully fostered 80 children during her career.
Adrian Smith: housing manager who was demoted for not backing same-sex marriage. Smith, a practising Christian, has had his pay slashed in 2011 because he said on his private Facebook page that allowing gay weddings in churches was ‘an equality too far’.
British Catholic adoption agencies: closed down by the ‘sexual orientation regulations’ for refusing to place children with homosexual couples.
Peter and Hazelmary Bull: hoteliars who were sued using Government money after refusing to offer a double bed to a homosexual couple in 2011.
So much for the liberating influence of secularism!
If David Pollock wishes to stand by his words, let him do so in public, as I now officially challenge him to a written debate to be published on our respective websites. The debate will address the following proposition: Nations flourish better when they are governed secularism rather than religion. Pollock can defend the affirmative and I will argue for the negative.
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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 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’.
A Constitutional challenge has been mounted in Belize to the laws which currently make unnatural acts a criminal offence. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for early in December (2011). We are calling for a mobilization of the church in prayer across the world for our brethren in Belize. If Belize is rolled over by the homosexual juggernaut, the rest of the Caribbean could easily follow.
The Constitution of Belize (formerly British Honduras) was settled in 1981. It acknowledges the supremacy of God, stresses human rights, freedom and the family. No-one has claimed before now that men suddenly have an inalienable right to commit acts of sodomy and gross indecency under it, especially as it says: ‘freedom is founded upon respect for moral and spiritual values and upon the rule of law’.
The law suit has been filed by an organisation called UNIBAM. UNIBAM is short for United Belize Advocacy Movement, which hides behind concern about HIV/AIDS but is nothing more than a shameless homosexual rights group. UNIBAM’s court case is fronted by the former UK Labour Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith QC, and has drawn condemnation from churches in Belize.
The US Embassy website admits that its grant to UNIBAM is for pro-gay propaganda. In their own words, the project: ‘will increase public awareness about homophobia while creating a safe space for HIV prevention work. The organization will organize a national debate on homophobia and human rights. Other initiatives will include the distribution of wrist bands to raise awareness of the issue, prevention education sessions among LGBT population, and the airing of public service announcements.’ View HERE.
Both UNIBAM and another pro-gay group, the Alliance Against Aids (AAA) are totally funded from abroad. The people of Belize themselves are overwhelmingly opposed to homosexuality. In the case of AAA, their money comes mainly from HIVOS, the wealthy Dutch Humanist body. Caleb Orozco, the founder and head of UNICAM, claims to have “‘friends in high places’ politically and in the media.” Homosexual View HERE.
UNIBAM has also received money from the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA (see page 7 of this link):
Dean Barrow, the Prime Minister of Belize, has come out against the move, according to a report from the ‘gay travelers network’, who are very interested in having a new exotic location in which to corrupt local youth for a dollar or two. The same website reveals that, astonishingly, the Commonwealth Lawyers Association is backing UNICAM:
Even this pro-gay BMJ article reveals that homosexual practices are dangerous and unsanitary. For a more detailed look, supported by research done by homosexual doctors, this scholarly article shows the implications for health and morals in Belize from decriminalising these acts of perversion.
African nations have reacted with fury and defiance to pressure from David Cameron and other leaders of decadent Western nations to decriminalise sodomy. Nigeria is poised to outlaw gay marriage, according to The Guardian (UK). A more balanced and informative article was in the Nigeria Sun newspaper. The British High Commissioner in Lagos, Andrew Lloyd, is furious. ‘Britain and other western countries would not tolerate any law that prescribes punishment for gays’, said Mr Lloyd.
Despite what the Guardian says about other African countries scrapping anti-gay laws, it’s all the other way. Zambia and Zimbabwe have said they will not enact gay rights, according to a UK homosexual paper. (Although we cannot imagine what possessed Morgan Tsvangirai to say he now believes ‘gay rights are human rights’.)
Ghana’s President John Atta Mills said he will never enact laws which will ‘destroy the moral fibre of society’, while John Nagenda of the Ugandan Presidential Office said “Uganda is, if you remember, a sovereign state and we are tired of being given these lectures … “If they must take their money, so be it,” he concluded.
Malawi’s governmental spokesperson Patricia Kaliati said that it was “unfortunate” that Britain was considering “pro-gay strings” to aid, adding that homosexual acts are illegal in Malawi. She noted that such laws are a legacy of British rule, reported Nyasa Times, but the laws were and are entirely consistent with African moral values, even though Britian is now sinking into a swamp of immorality and perversion, where homosexuals are now persecuting Christians.
Tanzania’s foreign affairs minister Bernard Membe said: “Tanzania will never accept Cameron’s proposal because we have our own moral values. Homosexuality is not part of our culture and we will never legalize it. Tanzania is ready to end diplomatic ties with Britain if it imposes conditions on the assistance it provides to pressurize for adoption of laws that recognize homosexuality. We are guided by our tradition. We have families of a mother, a father and children. What Cameron is doing might lead to the collapse of the Commonwealth.”
The President of Zanzibar, Ali Mohamed Shein, said that Islamic and Zanzibari culture abhors gay and lesbian activities. “We cannot compromise our deeply rooted culture or [allow] something which [is] completely against our religion. Let them cut off aid,” he said.
The fact is, the UK has to get rid of its aid budget, which is not so much about helping poorer nations as making our politicians look good. If mothers die in childbirth in an African nation because the UK denied that country aid on a gay whim, it will not look good on David Cameron’s CV. So their ‘lectures’, as Uganda described them, are mere posturing.
But back to the subject. The threat to Belize is real. Please pray for the Church in Belize to be granted wisdom, resources and favour with the judges, pray for confusion in the homosexual camp, and please sign our Save Africa from Sodomy Petition (if you have not already done so).
Boycott Tesco and email their Chief Executive. Remember: Every Little Helps!
Or to put it more accurately, God will humble proud Tesco, in answer to prayer.
As the Daily Mail has reported, retail giant Tesco have stopped sponsoring Cancer Research UK and switched their support to that annual display of aggression and depravity, London Gay Pride. But the Bible says: When pride cometh, then cometh shame (Prov 11:2).
Tesco’s idea of family – sad body-building homosexuals obessessed by looks and the male anatomy
Mr Richard Littlejohnsaid: ‘If gays want to dress up as Carmen Miranda or mince up and down The Mall in nothing but their knickers, that’s fine by me. But why would Britain’s biggest supermarket want to be associated with such an event, at the expense of cancer victims?’
There are five important and effective things Christians can do:
1 Pray that God will send repentance into the Tesco boardroom, and that they will reverse their grant to gay pride..
2 Boycott Tesco and encourage others to do the same.
3 Mount a witness with banners and/or give leaflets out to shoppers outside Tesco’s high street stores ‘Tesco Direct’ (they can throw you out of their car park, but you have every right to witness on the street). Contact us for leaflets. The text of the LEAFLET is HERE
4 Email/write to the Tesco Group Chief Executive, Philip Clark, philip.clarke@tesco.com and their Marketing Director, Richard Brasher: richard.brasher@tesco.com. You can also write to their new Chairman, Sir Richard Broadbent, at New Tesco House, Delamare Rd, Cheshunt, Herts, EN8 9SL. His email seems to be: richard.broadbent@tesco.com (HERE is what one ex-Tesco-customer wrote.)
5 Sign our petition ‘Boycott Tesco’. Make sure you right-click and then open it in a new tab or window to keep this page on-screen.
There are a couple of other really effective things to do as well, but we shall let Christian Voice members exclusively know about them at the proper time through our newsletter which never goes up on the web!
Aggressive and depraved - London Gay Pride
Tesco’s spin centres on ‘diversity’ as an ‘inclusive store’ – they even have an ‘Out at Tesco’ webpage promoting sodomy amongst their employees and a page commending staff for taking part in the 2010 parade – and ignores the fact that Gay Pride is a provocative and aggressive display of indecency and perversion. For all their posturing, would Tesco actually like a gay pride march through one of their stores? And if they are really interested in diversity, will they be sponsoring the ex-gay movement? Don’t hold your breath.
If you can bear it, here is a video link of Soho Pride, part of the London set-up in 2008. And it that was not enough, here is a video link showing just what the gentle, tolerant gays and their supporters think of those who disagree with them with music from someone called Lily Allen. Thanks, Anglican Mainstream.
Tesco have denied that sponsoring gay pride was at the expense of Cancer Research, but the facts are that Tesco’s support for the annual fundraising Race for Life, the UK’s largest women-only charity event, helped Cancer Research raise more than £400million for the fight against cancer since it began in 1994.
Tesco announced it would be a headline sponsor of Pride London just days after ending their partnership with Cancer Research. Tesco’s Head of Research and Development, a militant anti-Christian homosexual called Nick Lansley, lobbied hard for that decision.
Here at Christian Voice we have a soft spot for cancer charities ever since Maggies Centres courageously turned down tainted money from the blasphemous Jerry Springer the Opera in 2006 and were rewarded by making far more from the publicity around that decision than what they would have received from the show. Why on earth should Tesco think that dumping a cancer charity to take up with Gay Pride is a clever (even a good commercial) decision?
The militant atheist magazine Freethinker helpfully points out that the Co-op sponsor Manchester Gay Pride (as well as throwing Christian Voice out of their bank) and that ASDA’s parent Wal-Mart give benefits to gay partners of employees in the USA. Unless ‘Christian fundies want to starve themselves’, they chuckle, ‘they better (sic) start thinking fast of joining the grow-your-own movement’.
Well that’s a good idea in itself, but have they forgotten Sainsbury, not to mention your local shops? In addition, as we pointed out in our video on the supermarkets and halal, if you want to be sure of avoiding halal-slaughtered fresh meat, just shop at M&S or Morrisons.
Some words from Proverbs and from Mary on the subject of pride to inform your prayer. Remind the Lord of his word as you pray:
Prov 8:13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
Prov 11:2 When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.
Prov 13:10 Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.
Prov 14:3 In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.
Prov 16:5 Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
Prov 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Prov 29:23 A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.
Luke 1:49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. 50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. 51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
James 4:6 Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
