Yahoo Professor Hates F-word, But Only if Directed at Obama

Warning: Raw Language

From the Daily Caller:

Insulting the president and other government officials is practically a national pastime in the United States. This is a testament to the freedom of our society; in some parts of the world, insulting those who govern earns you swift punishment, or at least official censorship. That isn’t the case in America — unless you live on a college campus.

Students at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) in Texas found this out the hard way yesterday when they erected a “free speech wall” — a recently popular way for students to highlight the importance of free speech in which students put up a freestanding wall covered in paper, upon which anyone can write anything they want. Students jumped on the chance to participate. To cite a few examples: “Don’t hate against Gays . . .,” “If you make less than $200,000 Republicans don’t care about you,” “Life’s not a bitch, Life is a beautiful woman . . .,” “Han Solo Shot First,” “My boyfriend is a liar!,” “Legalize Weed!!!,” and “NAZI PUNKS FUCK OFF!!!”

But just hours in, the free speech wall was vandalized by a professor — yes, a professor! — who was offended that someone had written “FUCK OBAMA” on the free speech wall. Students being students, the “F-word” was written on the wall many times about many different topics, but apparently the only expletive that offended this professor enough to take action was the one referring to President Obama.

The professor, whom students identified as Joe Kirk, demanded that the student groups sponsoring the wall — including Republicans, Democrats, libertarians and socialists — cover up only the Obama statement. They refused. He then told them that he would come back with a box cutter and cut it out of the wall himself, which he then did. You can see the before and after pictures at thefire.org.

Shocked that a professor would do this, the student organizers got in touch with the campus police. When the police arrived, they interviewed the students and the vandalizing professor. Then came the surprise: The police told the students that since Prof. Kirk was offended by some profanity on the wall, the students were engaging in “disorderly conduct,” a misdemeanor, and had to cover up all the swear words on the wall or take it down. Realizing that this would make a mockery out of the purpose of a free speech wall, the students simply disassembled the wall. Thus ended SHSU’s several hour-long experiment with free speech.

. . . the police, by threatening to charge the students with disorderly conduct rather than Prof. Kirk with vandalism, have established a “heckler’s veto” on SHSU’s campus. Institutions grant a “heckler’s veto” over expression when they allow the reactions of those who hear or see the expression to govern what might be said, creating an incentive for people to act disruptively or violently when confronted with speech they don’t like in the expectation that the police will shut it down. That’s precisely what happened in this case: Prof. Kirk’s destructive vandalism and claims of offense led the police to silence the expression of every student who wrote on the Free Speech Wall.

Of course, trying to use a “heckler’s veto” is a standard tactic of the campus left. Threaten disorder, and way too many college administrations will shut up the speech the left dislikes, rather than clamp down on the disruptors.

It will be interesting to see whether Kirk is subjected to any kind of punishment. We doubt it will happen, since most college administrators (and the loud leftist lobby on most campuses) see nothing wrong with shutting up speech.

Just how many Marquette professors would do this? Very few, if any.

How many Marquette professors would defend what Kirk did, and insist that the student didn’t really have the right to make a vulgar comment on Obama? Quite a lot.

Liberal Democrat Senator Rockefeller: Ban Fox News, MSNBC

[Update]

It seems that Rockefeller has told Keith Olbermann that he likes his show.

So who is it that he really wants to ban?

Europe Doesn’t Get Religious Freedom: Majority Support For Banning the Burka

From the Financial Times:

More than half of voters in four other major European states back a push by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to ban women from wearing the burka, according to an opinion poll for the Financial Times.

As Mr Sarkozy presses ahead with plans to ban the wearing of the burka in public places, the FT’s latest Harris poll shows the move is not just strongly supported in France, but wins enthusiastic backing in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.

The poll shows some 70 per cent of respondents in France said they supported plans to forbid the wearing of the garment which covers the female body from head to toe. There was similar sentiment in Spain and Italy, where 65 per cent and 63 per cent respectively favoured a ban

The strength of feeling in the UK and Germany may seem particularly surprising. Britain has a strong liberal tradition that respects an individual’s right to full expression of religious views. But here, some 57 per cent of people still favoured a ban. In Germany, which is also reluctant to clamp down in minority rights, some 50 per cent favoured a ban.

“This poll shows that the number of people in France opposed to the burka is going up and that is the product of debate on burka and national identity,” said Professor Patrick Weil, an expert on national identity at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. “But the figure is clearly going up in other countries in Europe like the UK as well, and that reflects the growing concern that there is about this issue in some parts of Europe.”

In the US, concerns about the issue are far less strong than in Europe. Just 33 per cent of Americans surveyed by Harris supported a ban, a far lower figure than the 44 per cent who said they [opposed] it.

The figure for the U.S. is appalling, but the figures for Europe are beyond appalling.

Europe, it seems, just doesn’t get individual liberty. One can be put in jail for denying that the Holocaust happened. One can be put in jail for saying that homosexuality is sinful.

As for Islam, policies tend toward two polar extremes. Either Muslims are a politically correct “minority” that gets special protection, or they are singled out (as here) for special persecution. The idea of equal liberty for all just doesn’t register there. America’s special history has created a very special political culture, which in spite of this nation’s faults is simply superior to that of Europe.

And not just in terms of liberty. It’s a culture with less class envy, more stress on individual achievement.

In Europe, while opposition to the burka was strong, few respondents said they were prepared to support the ban as part of a wider drive towards secularism in their country.

Asked if they would support the burka ban if it were accompanied by a clampdown on wearing all religious icons such as the Christian crucifix and the Jewish cappel, only 22 per cent of French people said they supported such a move. In Britain, just 9 per cent of people said they would back such a move.

One might say it’s nice that Europeans will tolerate at least some religious free expression. The problem is that, in the absence of a robust civic culture supporting religious freedom (and freedom generally), how secure at the freedoms of Christians and Jews when their free expression irritates the secular elites that control the continent?

We know the answer to that already.

Leftists Don’t Believe in Academic Freedom

From the Associated Press:

BERKELEY, Calif. — Anti-war activists protested Monday at the University of California, Berkeley to call for the firing of a law professor who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists.

Campus police arrested at least four people who refused to leave the university’s law school building.

The demonstrators said John Yoo should be dismissed, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes for his work as a Bush administration attorney from 2001 to 2003, when he helped craft legal theories for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.

Shouting “war criminal,” the protesters confronted Yoo as he entered a lecture hall on the first day of class at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, where the tenured professor is teaching a civil law course this semester.

Yoo mostly ignored the demonstrators and waited for police to remove them from the classroom before he began teaching. Several officers then stood outside the lecture hall to prevent protesters and journalists from entering.

Demonstrators also staged a mock arrest of Yoo. Some dressed in black hoods and orange prisoner suits similar to ones seen in infamous photos of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which was closed in 2006 following reports of detainee abuse.

“There is little doubt that John Yoo is a war criminal,” said civil rights attorney Dan Siegel, speaking outside Boalt Hall. “John Yoo went to Washington and created the ideological, political and legal basis for the torture of innocent people.”

Yoo, who returned to UC Berkeley after spending the spring semester at Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Yoo, 42, has defended the controversial interrogation techniques, saying they were needed to protect the country from terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“To limit the president’s constitutional power to protect the nation from foreign threats is simply foolhardy,” Yoo wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last month.

He has come under intense criticism since the interrogation memos became public in 2004. The Berkeley City Council has passed a measure calling for the federal government to prosecute him for war crimes, and convicted terrorist Jose Padilla has filed a lawsuit alleging that Yoo’s legal opinions led to his alleged torture.

Christopher Edley Jr., Berkeley’s law school dean, has rejected calls to dismiss Yoo, saying the university doesn’t have the resources to investigate his Justice Department work, which involved classified intelligence.

Berkeley law students are divided over Yoo, whose classes are among the law school’s most popular.

Liz Jackson, a second-year law student, said the university should determine if he violated UC’s faculty code of conduct. “I personally believe he has blood on his hands,” said Jackson, 30.

But Nathan Salha, 24, who took one of Yoo’s classes last year and is enrolled in his course this semester, said he’s a good teacher. “I don’t think it’s the university’s place to fire him for political opinions,” he said.

Note that even if the CIA did things to terrorists that were in fact illegal, Yoo merely expressed a legal opinion about what liberals now call “torture.”

Further, the people who want him fired are not merely expressing their opinions, they are actually harrassing Yoo. What we have here, quite simply, is fascism.

[Update]

The New York Times solicited opinions on this, and you can see both the ones they solicited and the volunteered comments here.

A shockingly large proportion want Yoo fired. This is not some lefty “alternative” weekly, this is the New York Times.

The arguments used are bizarre, and would never be used against leftist professors. Several posters claim, for example that Yoo’s legal opinions had bad consequences. But how many leftist professors have (for example) indoctrinated foreign students about the glories of socialism, with massive damage to third-world peoples when they went home and took over power.

Others argue that his legal opinions are simply wrong, saying there is an objective legal truth, and Yoo deviated from it. That’s a bizarre argument indeed coming from people who think the Constitution can mean whatever you want it to.

Fascist intolerance by liberals against people with whom they disagree has become mainstream. It’s terribly close to becoming the norm.

White House Enemies List

This has gotten a lot of play in the media.

It’s the now-famous White House web page asking that Americans report any e-mail that says anything “fishy” about Obama’s attempt to impose government-run health.

We just sent them an e-mail, to flag@whitehouse.gov, as follows:

Please add me to your enemies list.

I’m a blogger who has blogged about how Obama wants government run health care.

You can’t make the video clips that show Obama saying he favors “single payer” go away.

John

I would suggest that an excellent form of protest would be for everybody who doesn’t like this Nixonian tactic to send a similar e-mail.

Of course, what one tells the White House would be different for each person, such as “I attended a town hall meeting and booed when the Congressman said that nobody wants government-run health care,” or “I sent a link to a video about how bad health care in Canada is to a friend.”

The Truth About the Town Hall Meetings

Some thoughts from Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t.

People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.

What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.

Obama to Dissenters: Shut Up

Most liberals know better than to overtly say, “we don’t like free speech,” and “free speech has to end.”

Admittedly, in some liberal enclaves (English and Philosophy departments, Education schools) liberals will say that. But they are so far out of the mainstream that they say fascist things without even realizing it.

But deep down, liberals can’t help thinking “the world would be so much better if all those evil people who oppose us were shut up.”

And sometimes, they let it slip out.

Homosexuality: It’s a Crime in England to State Christian Views

From CCFON:

An open-air preacher from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, was told by the police that he was committing a criminal offence by saying that homosexuality was a sin.

Andy Robertson, an evangelist with Open Air Mission, had never mentioned homosexuality in his open air preaching. Despite this, the local council sent a letter to him saying that they wanted him to stop preaching because they had received ‘complaints’. The council asserted that Mr Robertson was breaking the law by his preaching and that the Police would be called if he didn’t stop preaching. In the letter, the council did not specify which law was broken.

When the police arrived where Mr Robertson was preaching they told him they had received complaints that he was making ‘homophobic’ comments and that it was a crime to say that homosexuality was a sin. See a video of what happened at YouTube.

At CCFON we have become increasingly aware of how difficult it is to speak publicly on sexual ethics from a biblical standpoint particularly regarding the practice of homosexuality. At the Christian Legal Centre we are dealing with many cases where Christians are discriminated against because they hold biblical views on sexual ethics.

In the current Coroners and Justice Bill, the Government wants to remove the existing free speech clause that allows for discussion and criticism of sexual practices. The case of Mr Robertson and others is a clear indication that the society needs to keep a free speech protection.

The article cited at the end has a chilling list of cases where free speech incongenial to the gay lobby was published.

Last month, Kwabena Peat, a Christian teacher, was suspended from a senior post for complaining that a staff training day was used to promote homosexual rights.

Likewise, David Booker, an employee at a ‘homeless’ charity in Southampton, has been suspended for answering questions about his faith and sexual ethics to a colleague at work.

In 2003, the Rt Revd Dr Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester, was investigated by the Cheshire police as committing a ‘hate crime’ after he told his local newspaper that some homosexuals re-orientated to heterosexuality with the help of therapy. The Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop the charges because the Bishop had ‘not broken any current laws’.

In 2005, the Metropolitan Police issued a warning to author Lynette Burrows that she was responsible for a ‘homophobic incident’ after she suggested on a BBC Radio Five Live programme that homosexual couples did not make ideal adoptive parents.

In 2006, an evangelical Christian campaigner, Stephen Green, was arrested and charged with ‘using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour’ for trying peacefully to hand out leaflets at a homosexual rally in Cardiff. A spokesman for the South Wales police said the campaigner had not behaved in a violent or aggressive manner, but that officers arrested him because ‘the leaflet contained Biblical quotes about homosexuality’.

In the same year, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the then Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, was investigated by police for saying on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that homosexual practice was unacceptable in terms of health and moral issues.

The gay lobby is about as close to a fascist movement as one gets in modern democracies. Of course, not all gays (and not even a majority) are part of the gay lobby. In Presidential election exit polls, about 25% of gays and lesbians report that they have voted for the Republican for President. And a similar number say they oppose gay marriage.

But unfortunately, a core of gay militants is always joined by a sizable group of politically correct straight people.

Supposedly, free speech has better Constitutional protections in the U.S. than in the U.K. But a sizable group of people in the U.S. -- your average gay activist, your average English or Philosophy professor, a large proportion of liberal activists -- would like to see Christian views on sexuality shut up.

And this applies to issues like abortion and abstinence too.

Academia, the Second Amendment and the First

From The Recorder at Central Connecticut State University:

For CCSU student John Wahlberg, a class presentation on campus violence turned into a confrontation with the campus police due to a complaint by the professor.

On October 3, 2008, Wahlberg and two other classmates prepared to give an oral presentation for a Communication 140 class that was required to discuss a “relevant issue in the media.” Wahlberg and his group chose to discuss school violence due to recent events such as the Virginia Tech shootings that occurred in 2007.

Shortly after his professor, Paula Anderson, filed a complaint with the CCSU Police against her student. During the presentation Wahlberg made the point that if students were permitted to conceal carry guns on campus, the violence could have been stopped earlier in many of these cases. He also touched on the controversial idea of free gun zones on college campuses.

That night at work, Wahlberg received a message stating that the campus police “requested his presence”. Upon entering the police station, the officers began to list off firearms that were registered under his name, and questioned him about where he kept them.

They told Wahlberg that they had received a complaint from his professor that his presentation was making students feel “scared and uncomfortable”.

“I was a bit nervous when I walked into the police station,” Wahlberg said, “but I felt a general sense of disbelief once the officer actually began to list the firearms registered in my name. I was never worried however, because as a law-abiding gun owner, I have a thorough understanding of state gun laws as well as unwavering safety practices.”

Professor Anderson refused to comment directly on the situation and deferred further comment.

“It is also my responsibility as a teacher to protect the well being of our students, and the campus community at all times,” she wrote in a statement submitted to The Recorder. “As such, when deemed necessary because of any perceived risks, I seek guidance and consultation from the Chair of my Department, the Dean and any relevant University officials.”

Blogger Ed Brayton said the action served to “reinforce every stereotype about the ridiculous behavior of leftist academics.”

But the most cogent comment came from the CCSU campus:

“If you can’t talk about the Second Amendment, what happened to the First Amendment?” asked Sara Adler, president of the Riflery and Marksmanship club on campus. “After all, a university campus is a place for the free and open exchange of ideas.”

Not in this era of political correctness.

More Academic Fascism from Radicalized Muslims and Leftists

From the American Thinker:

The virulence of anti-Israelism and antisemitism at The University of California, Irvine campus, for instance, has been so flagrant and endemic in recent years that it actually prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, the findings of which were issued in a damning 2007 report. But San Francisco State University is not far behind in the ignoble way it has enabled its Muslim students’ organizations to create a veritable reign of terror on campus against Jewish and pro-Israel students, while simultaneously attempting to silence voices of opposition, a situation made evident this January when SFSU’s College Republicans were once again pushed into the limelight for their outspoken challenges to the school’s ubiquitous Palestinianism.

Playing off the recent indignity suffered by former president Bush when an insolent reporter hurled a shoe at the President’s head during a press conference, the College Republicans had set up a booth to let students who so wished to sign an anti-Hamas, anti-terror petition and throw a shoe at a Hamas flag. Deeply “offended” by the Republicans for daring to condemn terrorists, rather than the Israeli state in defending its civilians from genocidal attack, members of SFSU’s General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) and socialist club overturned the table, seized the Hamas flag, and were physically aggressive enough in their assault of the Republican students to result in two of their members, Muhammad Abdullah and Jeremy Stern, being put under arrest.

The outcome of this event, one would think, would be fairly straightforward, since the pro-Hamas protesters clearly violated SFSU’s own rules for student behavior, which clearly prohibit “conduct that threatens or endangers the health or safety of any person within or related to the university community, including physical abuse, threats, intimidation, [or] harassment,” all of which the Republican group experienced.

But in the morally-inverted world of academia, the Republican group, for the third time, find themselves the target of punishment and censure, not their attackers, and the “offended parties” -- the GUPS and the socialist club -- have made some breathtakingly audacious demands to the SFSU administration: the College Republicans must be punished or sanctioned for throwing shoes at the Hamas flag; pending charges should be dropped against the two protesters who assaulted the College Republicans and seized the Hamas flag; and, most ominously for defenders of free expression on campus, a forum should be created to “educate” students about what forms of speech the “offended” students deem acceptable or unacceptable, including what the Left regularly tries to proscribe as “hate speech.”

Of course, “hate speech” is simply speech that you don’t like.

Expressing hatred of whites, males or Christians is an absolutely normal activity around any university.

Of course, one could say that the College Republicans’ protest was rather provocative and uncivil -- a relevant observation if you think only genteel speech is protected by the First Amendment.

Were only the College Republicans acting out in a provocative way on an otherwise peaceful SFSU campus, they might well be rebuked for being crude and demonstrating impolite and impolitic behavior. But not only has the campus gained notoriety for the outrageousness of some of its morally-defective protests, but the same “offended” parties who sought punishments for the College Republicans, the General Union of Palestinian Students, have continually been at the center of a succession of riots, protests, and anti-Israel, anti-American hate-fests and counter-protests at which radical speakers regularly, and with unbridled invective, denounce and demonize Jews, Zionists, Israel, Republicans, and America.

Most notorious, for example, was the Muslim student-sponsored, pro-Palestinian April 2002 demonstration that included odious flyers and posters depicting a dead Palestinian baby on a soup-can label imprinted with the words “Palestinian Children Meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license,” echoing the centuries-old blood libel of European antisemitism that accused Jews of murdering Gentile children and using their blood to bake matzos -- a slander that has, not surprisingly, currently gained credence in the Arab world. Even if the perpetrators of this cruel protest consider this type of expression merely “academic free speech” and legitimate debate about Zionism, and also disingenuously claim that that there is no underlying Jew-hatred here, only debate about Israeli policies, and even if they are to be believed, might not such flyers possibly offend Jewish students on campus? Could accusing an ethnic group of infanticide possibly be construed as “intimidation” or fostering “incivility” on campus?

Fascists, here as elsewhere, simply aren’t willing to apply their anti-free speech doctrines in an even-handed way.

Which is why, in some borderline cases, we are less disturbed by restrictions on speech than about even-handedness. If people who want to shut up speech know that they might be subjected to exactly the same restrictions they want to impose on others, that would constitute a built-in protection against excesses. The situation, in other words, would be a prisoners’ dilemma.

But on a modern university campus, where all people are divided into politically correct “victim” groups and politically incorrect “oppressor” groups, even handedness is hard to find.

Free Speech Under Attack in the Netherlands

From FrontPage Magazine:

Geert Wilders has long been a thorn in the side of Holland’s politically correct powers that be. In an era of rigid multiculturalism, the gadfly politician has persisted in asking uncomfortable questions about the compatibility of Islamic mores and European values – an often-lonely campaign that has earned him death threats from Muslim fanatics and the disdain of the Dutch political class, media, and civil authorities. But rather than challenge Wilders in the court of public opinion, the Dutch establishment has decided to put him on trial.

This Wednesday the Dutch Court of Appeals in Amsterdam ordered a criminal prosecution of Wilders on charges of “incitement and hatred and discrimination.” His specific crime: statements that he has made about “Muslims and their belief.” Citing Wilders’s comparisons of Islam with Nazism, the Court of Appeals claims that criminal prosecution is the “obvious” response to this allegedly intolerable insult.

To understand just how outrageous is the court’s order it is necessary to consider the substance, such as it is, of the charges against Wilders. It does not exaggerate the case to say that Wilders is being accused of nothing more than holding an opinion with which the court’s judges disagree. (One cannot call it an unpopular opinion since, if recent polling is any guide, majorities of the Dutch public share Wilders’s apprehensions about Islam and Muslims’ ability to assimilate.) Thus, the court cites Wilders’s “insulting statements” and complains that his “presentation is characterized by biased, strongly generalizing [sic] phrasings with a radical meaning, ongoing reiteration and an increasing intensity.” In fact, the only truly “radical” idea is the notion that having a “biased” opinion, even one that some consider “insulting,” constitutes a crime. According to this absurdly open-ended standard, any Dutch citizen who has ever expressed an opinion has potentially committed a crime. “Apparently this is the Netherlands today,” Wilders darkly observed yesterday. “If you speak out you might be prosecuted. To participate in public debate has become a dangerous activity.”

American exceptionalism holds here, of course, and we can’t imagine anything like this happening in the U.S. -- at least not yet.

But the same sort of people who dote on Europe for having gay marriage, socialized medicine and no death penalty would, if they can amass enough political power, impose the same kinds of policies here. We already see that in the intolerance of college campuses, in attempts among Democrats to reinstate the “Fairness doctrine” and the imposition of orthodoxy tests in professions like social work.

Europe may be the wave of the future, at least if the left gets its way.

Free Speech Under Attack Internationally

We have regularly blogged about attacks on free speech, which today come overwhelmingly from the left.

But we have more, from the American Spectator:

Geert Wilders is a member of the Dutch Parliament and a documentary film producer; not exactly the person one would expect to find on the front line in the battle against both radical Islam and the Islamist assault on free speech. Yet, that is where the 45 year-old founder of the Party for Freedom stands. Wilders, by posting the infamous Danish cartoons of Muhammad on his website and producing a short film titled Fitna, has stirred international controversy that has prompted boycotts of Dutch products, condemnation by the UN Secretary General, constant death threats, and civil and criminal prosecution. Americans, especially politicians on the Left, should take notice.

Fitna features graphic images of terrorist attacks and quotes radical Imams and Koranic Suras used to justify terrorism. In response to the film, Wilders’ own government, at the behest of an angry Muslim population, investigated whether he violated any “hate speech” laws but ultimately declined to prosecute him. However, the Jordanian government is prosecuting Wilders, along with 12 other Europeans, for blasphemy against Islam and requesting that Wilders be extradited to Jordan to stand trial. If convicted in Jordan, Wilders could be sentenced to death.

Of course, the experience of Geert Wilders and those like him, says much about radical Islam and the threats it poses to free societies. However, it says something, perhaps nearly as frightening, about what Western societies are doing to themselves. Natan Sharansky, who spent years in the Soviet gulags and knows something about freedom, defined a free society in The Case for Democracy as one in which “people have a right to express their views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm.” By that definition, democracies all across the world are in jeopardy.

In much of Western Europe, where multiculturalism seems to be the official language, “hate speech” laws suppress candid discourse. Liability potentially awaits anyone whose views offend others. The Council of Europe’s website even states that “In multicultural societies it is often necessary to reconcile freedom of expression and freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In some instances, it may also be necessary to place restrictions on these freedoms.”

People who are offended by what a critic or commentator writes about them have started suing in countries with restrictive speech laws, in a means of forum shopping known as “libel tourism.” Deterred from pursuing libel cases in countries like the United States where legal standards are higher and free speech protections greater, these plaintiffs force authors to incur the expense of mounting a legal response or risk defaulting in a foreign jurisdiction.

There are also disturbing signs that free speech in America will become less protected and more regulated in the near future, especially with the reality of large Democratic majorities in Congress and a Barack Obama presidency looming. The most publicized example is reenactment of the Fairness Doctrine, which requires broadcasters to devote equal time to both sides of controversial issues. Paternalism aside, the Doctrine would cause an explosion of regulation and litigation and would effectively be used to destroy conservative talk radio and possibly FOX News. Members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have also suggested imposing “neutrality” requirements on the Internet, which could lead to content regulation of websites, including blogs.

The left no longer seems bashful about regulating free speech for political gain, and when I asked Wilders whether the prospect of a Democratic government could have profound implications for free speech rights in America, he coyly stated, “I know who I would vote for and it wouldn’t start with an ‘O.’” In fact, Barack Obama’s campaign, which raised and spent more money than any presidential campaign in history, has wielded the threats of libel suits and government investigations as a sword to quiet critics.

If protecting people from attacks on their religion sounds even the least bit attractive, one should ask why Christians aren’t protected, and indeed why anti-Christian bias is pretty much the orthodoxy on the secular left.

The reality is simple: when government punishes speech, it never does so in a principled and consistent way. Favored groups will always be allowed to say noxious things about disfavored groups, and disfavored groups will be muzzled.

At the moment, Muslims are a favored victim group of the liberal/left New Class. But if Muslims should seriously begin to impede the left agenda, they too will become fair game for censorship.

Professor Tears Down McCain Yard Signs, Fired

From Politico:

The St. Olaf (Northfield, Minn.) professor who, in a well-read Huffington Post item, recounted tearing down McCain campaign signs has resigned.Per the Northfield News, it appears that Philip Busse was forced out.

St. Olaf spokesman David Gonnerman issued the following statement Monday afternoon:

“The St. Olaf College administration first learned of Phil Busse’s self-admitted theft and destruction of campaign signs on the morning of Oct. 31 as a result of his posting on the Internet. “The St. Olaf administration immediately referred the matter to local law enforcement authorities and commenced an investigation of its own.

“Mr. Busse has tendered his resignation and is no longer affiliated with St. Olaf College.”

Busse has been charged with misdemeanor theft.

This is far from the first time an academic has done something like this.

Would the average liberal college professor do something like this?

No.

Would the average liberal college professor feel just a little bit of glee on hearing about McCain signs torn down -- before a scruple or two kicked in?

Yes.

We were talking to a colleague the other day, and he was fussing and fuming about how George Bush is supposedly tapping everybody’s phones. He was delighted that somebody had hacked into Sarah Palin’s e-mail account. His view seemed to be that Republicans deserve that.

So the problem is not that the average liberal professor is the sort of fascist who would tear down yard signs or hack into a political enemy’s e-mail account.

It’s that the average liberal professor is part of a culture so full of bias and hostility that such things happen.

America: Lone Beacon of Free Speech

From the International Herald Tribune, an article on how widespread regulation of speech -- under the doctrine of “hate speech,” is in Western democracies.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia: A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article’s tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.

Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.

Under Canadian law, there is a serious argument that the article contained hate speech and that its publisher, Maclean’s magazine, the nation’s leading newsweekly, should be forbidden from saying similar things, forced to publish a rebuttal and made to compensate Muslims for injuring their “dignity, feelings and self respect.”

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which held five days of hearings on those questions in Vancouver last week, will soon rule on whether Maclean’s violated a provincial hate speech law by stirring up animosity toward Muslims.

As spectators lined up for the afternoon session last week, an argument broke out.

“It’s hate speech!” yelled one man.

“It’s free speech!” yelled another.

In the United States, that debate has been settled. Under the First Amendment, newspapers and magazines can say what they like about minority groups and religions - even false, provocative or hateful things - without legal consequence.

Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France.

Last week, the actress Brigitte Bardot, an animal rights activist, was fined €15,000, or $23,000, in France for provoking racial hatred by criticizing a Muslim ceremony involving the slaughter of sheep.

By contrast, U.S. courts would not stop the American Nazi Party from marching in Skokie, Illinois, in 1977, though the march was deeply distressing to the many Holocaust survivors there.

While traditionally political liberals have favored free speech, that support has clearly flagged -- as anybody surveying the academic scene today can see -- as liberals and leftists have gained the power to shut up speech they don’t like.

Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.

“It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”

The articles further notes:

Many foreign courts have respectfully considered the U.S. approach - and then rejected it.

A 1990 decision from the Canadian Supreme Court, for instance, upheld the criminal conviction of James Keegstra for “unlawfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group by communicating anti-Semitic statements.” Keegstra, a teacher, had told his students that Jews are “money loving,” “power hungry” and “treacherous.”

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Robert Dickson said there was an issue “crucial to the disposition of this appeal: the relationship between Canadian and American approaches to the constitutional protection of free expression, most notably in the realm of hate propaganda.”

Dickson said, “There is much to be learned from First Amendment jurisprudence.” But he concluded that “the international commitment to eradicate hate propaganda and, most importantly, the special role given equality and multiculturalism in the Canadian Constitution necessitate a departure from the view, reasonably prevalent in America at present, that the suppression of hate propaganda is incompatible with the guarantee of free expression.”

So if you want to shut up somebody, all you have to do is explain that their speech isn’t compatible with “equality” or “multiculturalism.”

The problem, of course, is that hate speech laws will never be enforced in an even handed way.

Politically correct groups (Muslims, homosexuals) will be protected, but disfavored groups (Christians, capitalists) will occupy a free fire zone. The Bill Mahers of the world will never have anything to fear.

And the political left will define who is politically correct. Just as on university campuses.

Gay Fascism on Campus: Livid Lesbians Shut Up Speaker They Dislike

From World Net Daily:

Rioting lesbians have stormed a speech by “Born Gay Hoax” author Ryan Sorba on the campus of Smith College in Massachusetts, shutting down his address, according to two major pro-family organizations, Americans for Truth and Mass Resistance.

“Beware lesbians with frying pans (if you care about free speech),” AFT said in his announcement. “Lesbian activists at Smith College just couldn’t stand by and let a young critic explain his views about the supposed innateness of homosexuality – so they stormed Ryan Sorba’s speech on the ‘Born Gay Hoax’ and forced him to end it prematurely.”

“Thus they decided for everyone in the room – supporters, foes, the curious and the undecided – whether Sorba’s arguments would be heard. Stalin would be proud,” said AFT’s Peter LaBarbera.

Shouts of “We’re here, we’re queer, Get used to it!” combined with various shrieks and screams punctuate the protests.

With police officers standing idly by, a homosexual protest leader takes the microphone and orders, “They have told us to leave, so everyone needs to stay.”

While security officers are shown doing nothing to eject the mob, Sorba is told to leave the room.

You can watch videos of what happened here.

If the actions of these bigoted leftists are not appalling enough, even worse are the people who support them.

Consider, for example, a blog called “Pam’s House Blend,” which is populated by this sort of people.

The title of her post is “Smith College students give ‘Born Gay Hoax’ author a piece of their minds” -- an absurd euphemism.

Pam, in an update, backs away a bit from endorsing the Nazi behavior the the Smith lesbians, but her commenter have no such compunctions. One said, for example:

Personally I don’t see a problem with the protest. In fact, I think we need more of such actions these days, as long as they are not physically violent. I’m as big a fan of free speech protection as the next person. But what would the rightful reaction on campus have been if the speaker were someone plugging a book saying the Holocaust never really happened? Or one promoting the KKK? I don’t see a problem disrupting hate speech which is ultimately responsible for horrific events like the murder of Lawrence King.

Of course, this person would never object to a speaker saying that the U.S. government invented AIDs to kill black people, or that Dick Cheney planned and executed the 9/11 attacks. Apparently she is OK with free speech if the speaker doesn’t say anything “really bad.”

And she and her friends get to decide what is “really bad.”

Another poster:

I do not like being measured as wanting by a conservative Republican college student who gets to preach bad science, a single biblical interpretive viewpoint and who arrogantly expects not to be challenged on trying to cut the basis of our citizenship out from under us.

This is very standard thinking on the part of the politically correct crowd on campus. What they “do not like” must be banned. What they consider “bad science” must be banned. A “single biblical interpretive viewpoint” (unless it is their own) must be banned.

Another, even more chilling comment comes from a poster who is proud to have shut up a speaker.

When I was an undergrad at New Mexico Tech in the late 80’s we had a “Faith Healer” (forget who, but Benny Hinn comes to mind) who wanted to hold his revival on campus in our auditorium. NMT is strictly science oriented and the vast majority of students and professors joined together to protest the upcoming event as being contrary to our educational agenda of fact-based instruction.

As a result, the on-campus event was cancelled and moved to an off-campus location. HOWEVER, we continued the protest and got the Townies involved as well. Socorro has two primary populations: 1) The College, students & professors, fairly liberal; and 2) The Townies, Hispanic, very Catholic, conservative. Needless to say, it wasn’t hard to get the everyone worked up against a non-Catholic and he ended up just cancelling his appearance in town all together.

It was totally peaceful, we did not silence him or prevent him from coming to town, but we did drown him out and let him know that we were not going to stand by quietly to let him spread his fraudulent propaganda on our campus or in our town.

New Mexico Tech is a state university, and speakers have the full rights of the U.S. Constitution (unlike Marquette, which has the legal right to shut up faith healers, or pro-abortion speakers, if it wants). So demanding that the college cancel the speech was a direct attack on the Constitution.

Notice how the woman in question is bragging about the fact that she and her leftist friends could exploit anti-Protestant religious bias.

One has every right to say faith healing is nonsense, but it’s hardly hate speech. It’s just something that secular liberals don’t believe in.

(It would be interesting if Marquette banned a faith healer, since the Catholic Church has a rite of exorcism. But then, Marquette might insist that Protestants can’t be faith healers.)

There is, of course, plenty of this sort of intolerance in Wisconsin.

A local liberal blogger (“Wallah”) found it “encouraging” that students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee tried to disrupt a speech by David Horowitz.

And students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point vandalized an anti-abortion display on that campus.

This folks, is the campus left in 2008, with a festering hatred for ideas they disagree with, and a fascist willingness to shut up those ideas.

Anti-Abortion Display Vandalized at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

From a news release from Wisconsin Right to Life:

Pointers for Life is a right-to-life group at UW-Stevens Point whose leader is funded by Wisconsin Right to Life.

It what they deemed a moving visual demonstration of abortion in America, Pointers set up a Cemetery of Innocents display on campus consisting of 4,000 crosses to depict the number of human lives lost each day to abortion.

Overnight, the display was vandalized with crosses slashed and broken. As several Pointers’ members were repairing the display, a group of displeased students, led by student Senator Roderick King, began to yell at them and debate with them. They demanded to know who authorized the cross project.

Not satisfied with answers, King and his friends began pulling hundreds of crosses from the ground and tossing them away. Pointers then called Protective Services, knowing their project had been properly approved.

King claimed that Pointers for Life had “no right” to display the crosses and that it was “his duty as a paying student” to take it down. “The freedom of speech does not cover these signs and symbols,” he claimed. When Protective Services stepped in, King’s friends stopped but King continued until he was informed that unless he ceased, he would have to pay for the damages.

The Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs eventually restored order. Pointers for Life submitted a complaint to the student association, asking that King resign or be disciplined.

“We wonder what caused such intolerance and disrespect,” said Barbara Lyons, Executive Director of Wisconsin Right to Life. “It is hard to understand why a group of white crosses would trigger such an extreme response from King.”

Checking he Wausau Daily Herald, we find that the news release is correct and accurate.

Indeed, there is a video on YouTube (see below).

As always, the fascists on a contemporary college campus are on the left.



[Update]

From the Huffington Post, apparently the UW-Stevens Point has punished the leftist vandal, although they invoke privacy laws and won’t reveal what the punishment is.

More and More Cases of Censorship on College Campuses

Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, rattles off a long list in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times.

But students and faculty members already are being censored, silenced and punished for having unpopular or offensive views on a regular basis. Here are just a few examples of cases going on right now:

• At Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, a student-employee was found guilty of racial harassment for reading a book. The book, Notre Dame vs. the Klan, was apparently offensive because it has pictures of Klansmen on the cover -- never mind that the book actually celebrated the defeat of the Klan by Notre Dame students in a 1924 riot.

• At Colorado College, students were found guilty of “violence” (pdf) for publishing a satire of a feminist flier (pdf). The joke flier (pdf) celebrated manliness and talked about “chain saw etiquette,” “tough guy wisdom” and the range of a sniper rifle. Dick Celeste, former Ohio governor and Colorado College president, defended the punishment on his blog by citing the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings. The title of my recent blog, “What Can the Virginia Tech Tragedy Do for Me?” tells you what I think about that rationale. The flier was a parody, and everyone knew it. Yet Celeste shamefully invoked national tragedies as an excuse for his mistake.

• At Brandeis University, a professor of 47 years was found guilty of racial harassment for using the word “wetback” in a Latin American politics class in order to explain and decry the epithet. The administration there has arrogantly refused to overturn the finding.

• At Georgia’s Valdosta State University, a student was expelled for a “threatening” collage on Facebook. While the university backed down from that punishment in January, the school maintains a ““free speech zone” that is only available from noon to 1 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. -- and only on 48 hours notice.

• At Tufts University, a student publication was found guilty of racial harassment of parodying affirmative action but, far more disturbing, for publishing true -- if uncomplimentary -- facts about radical Islam. Tufts has also refused to overturn the finding.

• At Lake Superior State University, a professor has been ordered to remove conservative cartoons and jokes on his office door despite the fact that professors who have more liberal views are regularly allowed to post what they want on their own doors.

• Meanwhile, 75% of the 346 American colleges the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education surveyed in 2007 maintain speech codes that would not pass constitutional muster. FIRE even runs a “Speech Code of the Month” feature that highlights the worst of them. I have always been a fan of Davidson College’s sexual harassment policy, which prohibits the use of “patronizing remarks” such as “referring to an adult as “girl,” “boy,” “hunk,” “doll,” “honey” or “sweetie” and further prohibits “comments or inquiries about dating.” How, exactly, do people date there? And do people really use the word “hunk” anymore?

Lukianoff adds to the list in another column about Ben Stein’s movie, “Expelled:”

If you are reading this, Mr. Stein, I ask you to please take a look at the cases I cited yesterday. Please take a look at the violations against religious students’ rights (including banning “The Passion of the Christ”), the gross violations of due process, the crazy indoctrination of students, and the actual ideological litmus tests at schools as prestigious as Columbia University’s Teachers College. Did you know that most colleges that FIRE surveys maintain oppressive speech codes? Did you know that many colleges maintain tiny and out-of-the-way free speech quarantines called speech zones? We could use some high-profile help here, Ben. With your power and influence you really could help bring a missing dose of liberty back to campuses. But if you only care about ID education, I suspect that you will only be preaching to people who already agree with you.

We think that Lukianoff is letting some of his cultural biases intrude when he berates Stein for only being concerned for the free expression of anti-Darwinist ideas. But on the large point -- the pervasiveness of intolerance and censorship on college campuses -- he’s absolutely on target.

Intolerance in Academia: The Pope in Italy

Sometimes it seems that about half our posts could have the title “Intolerance in Academia.” And that’s because academia is today (especially in the very tolerant United States) an island of political correctness in the sea of a generally open-minded society.

But when you put European intolerance (which we have blogged about here and here and here) together with academic intolerance, you get out and out fascism.

Which brings us to the Pope:

After three days of rising protests from students and professors, Pope Benedict XVI has pulled out of a long-scheduled visit Thursday to Rome’s historic La Sapienza University. The surprise announcement Tuesday afternoon caps a high-stakes academic firefight between fiercely secular scholars and the former professor Pontiff that included a letter from 67 faculty members calling for the cancellation of Benedict’s speech.

The Pope’s opponents burst out in celebration at the east Rome campus when reached with the news of the cancellation. The Vatican released a statement saying it now viewed the visit as “inopportune” in light of protests they say could damage the Pontiff’s image. But by backing out under pressure from his secular foes, the 80-year-old Pope may yet have the last word in this battle over the meaning of “reason” in today’s intellectual debate. For the whiff of censorship toward a figure who is welcomed in myriad settings across the world — both for his position and his intellect — may offer ammunition for Benedict’s belief that he is something of a “Pope under siege” in the face of the prevailing secular winds of his times.

The Pontiff had been invited by the La Sapienza rector to speak at the annual ceremony to inaugurate the academic year. Over the weekend, unwelcoming banners were already appearing on campus saying “No to the Pope” and “La Sapienza Hostage to the Pope,” and several left-wing student groups had promised widespread heckling for Benedict’s arrival on Thursday. But perhaps most notable was the professors’ letter, which was printed in the Rome daily La Repubblica, calling on school officials to cancel the papal appearance, which they said was “incompatible” with the university’s secular mission.

The letter, which was signed by several notable members of the physics faculty, cites a 1990 speech made by Benedict, then the Vatican Cardinal in charge of Church doctrine, describing the Church’s 17th century heresy trial against Galileo as “reasonable and fair” . . . . The future Pope’s words, reads the text of the professors’ letter, “offend and humiliate us as scientists faithful to reason and as teachers who dedicate our lives to the advancement and spread of knowledge.”

Of course, academic leftists believe they should never have to tolerate speech which offends them.

And it is a puzzle how a bunch of secular academics could be humiliated by having the Pope take a postion they disagree with.

Of course, if Marxism is a philosophy that has the protection of academic freedom on campus, a defense of the Church’s treatment of Galileo should too. But then, there are other people’s orthodoxies, which the secular academic ayatollahs want to shut up, and one’s own orthodoxies, which everyone wants to protect.

But being a lifelong man of study and reflection, Benedict also sees the source for much of the conflict in how ideas germinate and spread on university campuses. Biographers say his experience as a professor during the student upheavals of the late 1960s — where he believed a godless pursuit of personal freedom was spiraling out of control — helped shape his view of contemporary secular culture and the current state of academia.

Forty years later, he appears only more convinced that something is awry. In the same Regensberg lecture that criticized Islam for lacking a fundamental belief in reason, the Pope was also sending a warning to the West that reason itself was suffocating faith and destroying its historical identity. By offering himself up as victim of the La Sapienza professors he can cite further evidence for this argument right in his own backyard.

Shoebat Speech: Victory for Free Expression

It seems so common that politically incorrect views are shut up on college campuses these days that it’s news when somebody is allowed to speak.

But it happened last night at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Walid Shoebat had his say before an overflow audience of 750 at the UWM Union.

The whole thing was in question for a while. When the Conservative Union at UWM first proposed bringing in Shoebat, the UWM administration, by its body language, didn’t seem too happy about the prospect, and threw up some procedural roadblocks.

Under pressure, especially from conservative talk radio, the UWM administration began to see things differently, and approved the speech, but with a draconian $1,700 addition charge for security added to the regular room fee.

Eventually, that charge was dropped.

Muslim students tried to get the speech cancelled, and failed.

Shoebat a Hero?

Our elation over the victory for free speech doesn’t require us to like Shoebat. It happens we do like Shoebat, but that’s irrelevant.

The majority of the crowd, heavily laced with Jews and listeners of conservative talk radio received him very favorably.

Some of our students who attended thought him excessively harsh, however. One just told us that Shoebat reminded him of Hitler.

That is the point of free speech. You get to listen. You get to make up your mind.

Muslim Response

A large number of Muslim students were present, and they asked hostile questions of Shoebat. Fair enough.

There was some inappropriate heckling at times, some very uncivil questions, and even one threat of violence -- which was not to be taken seriously.

But Shoebat got to speak his peace.

Likewise, a small group of calling themselves “Jews Against Islamophobia” protested. They were cordoned off in the hall outside the event, but in plain sight (and indeed, within a yard or two) of the crowd as it filed past slowly.

And Muslim students organized their own counter-forum to rebut Shoebat’s assertions.

How Did the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Look?

It appeared that UWM had to be intimidated by a huge burst of publicity, mostly coming from Milwaukee talk radio, to do the right thing.

But a lot of university bureaucrats, when faced with an issue like this, simply hunker down and insist on shutting up speech that might cause controversy. This has chronically been the case at Marquette. So if we have only faint praise for UWM, that’s more than we have for a lot of institutions.

When the night arrived, UWM handled things with a high level of professionalism. Security was good, and dissenters had their right to speak too.

Precedent

Issues like this create precedents. Each and ever case of censorship on a college campus reinforces the idea that any speaker that some aggrieved group dislikes can and should be banned.

But each time censorship fails, the norm of academic freedom is reinforced. In the future, UWM bureaucrats will know that it’s safer, simpler and much better public relations just to let the controversial speaker talk.

We wonder when Marquette will get this message.

A Victory Over Gay Lobby Fascism

It’s a case we reported just last Wednesday. Now, a major turn-about:

Christian Couple no Longer Required to Promote Homosexuality in Fostering Children

Couple thanks media for making their situation known to public

By Hilary White

CHARD, Somerset UK, November 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Vincent and Pauline Matherick are the Christian couple in Somerset who chose to retire from fostering needy children rather than bow to the Somerset county council’s demand that they promote the homosexual lifestyle. After the media generated international uproar over their situation, they have been invited back by the council and have had their religious objections recognised.

The couple met with council officials on Wednesday and today were told they could continue fostering and would not have to “promote homosexuality”. “It’s good news and we’re very pleased,” Mr Matherick said.

“This is a blessing and I must thank the media, and particularly the Daily Mail, for their help in highlighting the issue.”

Somerset council officials said in a statement that the couple “have no problem in signing Somerset’s Equalities Promise, which includes an expectation not to discriminate unfairly for reasons of sex, marital status, caring responsibilities or sexual orientation.”

“We all agree that the welfare of children is paramount. It is absolutely vital that people come forward as foster carers.”

The council’s statement admitted that the incident “may have damaged the image of fostering at a time when vulnerable children need caring homes.”

A spokesman for the couple said the council had agreed to recognise their convictions and conscientious objections. “The Mathericks hope now to continue to foster children as before.”

Andrea Williams of Christian Concern For Our Nation said: “This is a significant step forward for Christian freedoms in that the Council has agreed not to force Mr. and Mrs. Matherick to act against their Christian beliefs. This should be of enormous encouragement to all Christians who want to take up the important role of caring for vulnerable children.”

The Mathericks are ministers in the non-conformist South Chard Christian Church and when their 11 year-old foster son David was removed from their home, he had asked to be allowed to continue attending their Sunday school.

The Mathericks had insisted that they had never “discriminated” against anyone for any reason, but that they could not agree to the council’s “equality statement” because it amounted to promotion of homosexuality, which would be a violation of their Christian beliefs and conscience. Mr Matherick said, “I cannot preach the benefits of homosexuality when I believe it is against the word of God.”

As a result of their decision, the council removed their 11 year-old foster son David and placed him in a council-owned facility. The Mathericks had cared for 28 children in their home since 2001 and were described as ideal foster carers.

It’s terribly revealing that the bureaucrats valued political correctness over what was obviously in the interest of the child.

It would be tempting to celebrate a victory for religious liberty here, but that would be premature.

The fact that Christians can fight the gay lobby and win does not change the fact that they do have to fight the gay lobby.

That being the case, the natural human tendency to avoid nasty confrontation and to live peacably plays into the hands of those with an intolerant agenda.

Christians, to put it bluntly, have to be willing to be aggressive in defending their rights.