It is becoming abundantly clear that we either insist on a whole raft of special rights for homosexuals, or we defend freedom of speech, but we cannot have both. Every day we find more appalling examples of homosexual militants and their allies in the State clamping down on freedom of speech.
Simply dare to take a contrary view to the reigning homosexual orthodoxy and all hell will break loose. That is why in my 2014 book Dangerous Relations I had an entire chapter on the erosion of freedom under the homosexual juggernaut. I offered 165 examples from a 34 month period of individuals being persecuted for holding differing beliefs.
Simply to state that marriage is between a man and a woman on your own private Facebook page for example can result in you being fined or fired. And some of the horror cases I cite show that differing viewpoints can even see you being jailed.
In today’s climate of homosexual hegemony, all dissenting voices will be silenced. Freedom is now all one way traffic: all things homosexual and transsexual are now a politically protected species, while those remaining voices of sanity are being hunted down and punished.
Let me offer just a few recent examples of this. Consider this shocker:
A Christian postgraduate student has been expelled from his course, effectively ending his chances of a career as a social worker, for voicing opposition to gay marriage in a Facebook discussion.
Felix Ngole, a 38-year-old father of four, expressed support for Kim Davis, the county clerk from Kentucky in the US who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licences after the introduction of same-sex unions in September last year.
He argued that homosexual activity is against the teaching of the Bible, quoting a verse from Leviticus describing it as an “abomination”.
The post, from his private Facebook account, was part of a discussion thread in which other users voiced their opinions on all sides of the debate.
It was not until two months later that he was summoned to a disciplinary hearing at Sheffield University after a fellow student complained about his post.
He said he was initially not even told what he was accused of doing. He was eventually told that it involved breaching social work guidelines on “personal conduct” and “bringing the profession into disrepute”.
At a further hearing, a university “fitness to practise” panel concluded that he was entitled to his opinion on the issue of gay marriage but that there was a danger he “may have caused offence to some individuals” by voicing it.
They concluded that, even though he was not yet even qualified as a social worker, his comment on the Facebook thread would affect his ability to operate in the profession.
As a result he was effectively expelled from the university, ordered to hand in his student ID and even his library card.
The case has striking parallels with that of Adrian Smith, a housing trust manager from Trafford, Greater Manchester, who was demoted in 2011, effectively having his salary halved, over a private Facebook post in which he voiced opposition to plans for gay marriage.
The trust claimed that Mr Smith’s posting could damage its reputation for “diversity” and that even though it had been posted outside work it breached policies forbidding upsetting colleagues.
Another UK case can also be mentioned:
A Christian prison worker who was barred from participating in chapel services after quoting a Scripture that references homosexuality will have his case heard by an employment tribunal today.
Barry Trayhorn has been employed as a gardener at HMP Littlehey since 2011, and since 2012 he has volunteered to help with the chapel services at the invitation of the prison chaplain. The facility houses those who have been convicted of sex offenses.
In May of last year, while leading worship, Trayhorn felt led to quote from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and exhort prisoners that forgiveness is available to those who will repent.
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God,” the Scripture reads. “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
“As I led the worship, I spoke about the wonder of God’s love and the forgiveness that comes through Jesus Christ to those who recognize their sin and repent,” Trayhorn said in a statement. “I simply said what the Bible says. Prisoners need to hear God’s word just as much as anyone else. If people come to a Christian chapel service, we cannot hold back the gospel truth that God forgives those who repent.”
A complaint was lodged against Trayhorn four days later, and he was barred from assisting further with chapel services, being advised that he had violated prison policy and U.K. equality laws for speaking against homosexuality.
“The mere mention of homosexual behavior in the Bible verses that I quoted provoked complaint,” he outlined. “I was barred from taking part in chapel services and trouble came my way.”
One or two examples alone do not make a case, but many hundreds of them do. My book would easily be twice as big if I had continued to document all these cases of anti-Christian bigotry and clampdowns of freedom of speech. And back in Australia, things are no better.
I have done hundreds of media debates over the years, including those wretched TV “debates” where you are the sole conservative voice pitted against the rest of the panel and audience. They are always stacked decks, and are really painful experiences to have to go through.
But the hope is a little bit of truth will at least emerge. Lyle Sheldon from the ACL was on last night’s Q&A on ABC TV, and as expected, it was utterly woeful. One voice against a horde of secular left haters. Whenever he tried to speak he was shouted down by the audience, interrupted by other panellists and the moderator, and prevented from being able to carefully make his case.
And of course the audience was stacked with personal cases of poor trans this and poor homo that. Emotive personal stories always trump mere talking heads. And the ABC does this constantly. The outcome in other words was predetermined.
Thus the ABC offers a pretence of free speech, when in reality it is one long propaganda exercise, with the militant homosexual agenda given a free ride. So censorship can take various forms. We see it everywhere in the ABC and our other mainstream media outlets.
Many of us have been warning that legalising homosexual marriage here will only make matters worse. Thus it was great to see Michael Sexton in today’s Australian with a piece entitled, “Same-sex marriage: laws against ‘offending’ shut down debate”.
He begins:
A Christian group has been heavily criticised by a number of commentators because it raised the question of whether it would be necessary for the commonwealth to override areas of state and territory legislation if a plebiscite on same-sex marriage were to take place.
But there are various laws in these jurisdictions that could make it unlawful for bodies opposed to same-sex marriage to put their case to the electorate.
Take the example of Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act, not least because it has already been used to bring legal proceedings against the Catholic Church over its distribution of a booklet supporting traditional marriage to the parents of Catholic school students.
This legislation makes it unlawful to offend, humiliate, intimidate, insult or ridicule a person on the basis of various attributes. Those attributes include sexual orientation, marital status and relationship status, provided a reasonable person would have anticipated that the subject of the conduct in question would be offended or otherwise affected.
It would therefore be open to persons in same-sex relationships to complain they were offended by a “no” campaign in the course of the plebiscite that argued same-sex marriage was sinful in a religious sense or simply socially undesirable.
These views may not represent those of a majority in the community, but that is no reason why they should not be allowed to be put to the electorate.
This is why the proposed plebiscite throws into sharp relief the problems of this kind of legislation in a way that individual cases might not. Laws that make it unlawful to offend various groups in the community inevitably stifle public debate on contentious social, economic and political issues. This is because some will always be offended if their lifestyles or views are criticised or disparaged.
He continues:
Of course, freedom of speech is not an absolute value. It has always been subject to many qualifications including the law of defamation (to protect individual reputation) and the law of contempt (to protect the administration of justice). But this is very different from a restriction on speech designed to protect a person’s feelings from being offended.
The rationale underlying these laws has been taken to the extreme in some US universities, where lecturers have been required to warn students about passages in textbooks they might find offensive.
No doubt there will be a move to follow suit by some zealous staff in the history and international relations departments of universities in this country. Universities were once thought of as places where the views of students — and teachers — could be challenged fearlessly. Once freedom of speech is curtailed in this way, there is no reason to allow any contrary views to be heard.
Even assuming the commonwealth could quarantine state legislation for the purposes of a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, it would face greater difficulties in a referendum on the recognition of indigenous people in the Constitution. The reason is that section 18C of the federal Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to offend racial, national and ethnic groups. It is certainly possible that arguments against amending the Constitution in this way for whatever reason might be offensive to Aboriginal organisations involved in supporting a referendum.
How have we got to the position in Australia where laws might have to be suspended so there can be a proper public discussion of a serious social and political issue in a plebiscite or a referendum?
Yes we have gotten there, as has the rest of the West. Hello homosexual tyranny; goodbye freedom.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/12176380/Christian-student-expelled-for-opposing-gay-marriage.html
http://christiannews.net/2015/11/02/prison-worker-barred-from-participating-in-chapel-services-for-quoting-scripture-about-homosexuality/
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/samesex-marriage-laws-against-offending-shut-down-debate/news-story/4d8f40d95a129f547da799237dc26551
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