Street Preacher Charged For Saying Homosexuality A Sin

By Al Webb
Religion News Service

LONDON (RNS) A Christian street preacher in Britain will stand trial for telling a passerby -- in earshot of a policewoman -- that God views homosexuality as a sin.

Police arrested Dale McAlpine, a 42-year-old Baptist, under Britain's Public Order Act 1986, which forbids "using threatening, abusive or insulting words ... tending to and causing harassment, alarm or distress."

McAlpine told The Daily Telegraph newspaper that he was arrested after a part-time police officer said she heard him reciting a list of "sins" against God, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same-sex relationships.

The preacher denied mentioning homosexuality, but he did concede he had told a passing shopper that it was a sin in the eyes of God.

At a magistrates court hearing in Workington, England, on Friday (April 30), McAlpine pleaded not guilty to the public order offense charge but was arraigned for trial at an unspecified date.

"My freedom was taken away on the hearsay evidence of someone who disliked what I said, and I was charged under a law that doesn't apply," he said.

The newspaper report said McAlpine was fingerprinted, given a DNA swab and retina scan, and was locked in a police cell for seven hours on April 20.

"I am not homophobic," he insisted, "but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator."

McAlpine's arrest comes days after a top British judge was criticized for ruling that Christian beliefs are not entitled to special protection under the laws of the nation.

Comments

[goodog]

05:29 AM on 05/10/2010

if a cop overhears the comment, is that considered hearsay? I think that's a direct witness.

Europe and the UK make a big deal about public incitement of bigotry because of their recent history with the worst of it.

If secularism and homosexuals weren't their current enemies, the churches would be at each others throats instead.

As oppressed as churches feel today under secular society, they forget how deadly it was as each took turns in their day being the dominant religious theocracy.

We still see traces around Christmas when those emails start making the rounds, claiming that various Christmas carols are secret religious lessons, catechisms used to hide Catholic teaching from Protestants and so forth.

Aside from that romanticized neo-victimization, they've largely forgotten that secularism was instituted by religious people for their own good... to protect them from each other.

Secularism is a social order separate from religion, without actively dismissing or criticizing religious belief. Enlightenment era secularism is what ended the rampant, sectarian, interdenominational warfare that led the founding fathers to institute a religion-blind separation of church and state... indeed for religion's sake, because without it, we've seen what happens.

Religions quarrel murderously for control of a government that allowed for sectarian dominance... such as is still allowed in the Middle East.

On the other hand, atheists would have you believe that secularization is opposed to religion, but it's merely independent of religion. Secularism is agnostic... non-sectarian. Don't confuse secularism and atheism.

[Etruscate]

08:01 AM on 05/09/2010

I want to laugh at this guy, next week they may just charge an atheist for the same kind of thing.

[Garspies]

05:49 PM on 05/09/2010

I'm quite sure that you won't find an atheist standing on a street corner preaching from the bible. We just don't care about those things.

[goodog]

05:33 AM on 05/10/2010

"...next week they may just charge an atheist for the same kind of thing."

if he's harassing someone over their religion, yes, the law applies.

[James Ballard]

05:28 PM on 05/10/2010

@ "goodog"
4:25 PM CST

...That's where I'm confused/alarmed. Does not British/English law have a legal rubric/template comparable to our 1st amendment ? Magna Carta/John Locke in part formed the basis of our constitution and Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man", etcetera...

How can anyone in Britain be arrested for expressing his religious views in public providing he has a willing audience ? I find this arrest bizarre in a Western nation.

In Muslim theocracies, draconian legal strictures are applied zealously for so-called "insults", particularly if the "insult" has a religious basis.

Are we now beginning to emulate Muslim jurisprudence ?

J.B.
5/10/10

[SneathLane]

12:51 AM on 05/09/2010

There's no constitutional protection for religious nutters in the UK who yell at passersby and threaten them, thank heavens. I despise Christian bible-thumpers who preach at me in public places where I can't get away from them - buses and subway cars are the worst. Treat offensive street preachers exactly as Christians have traditionally treated heretics and queers, I say - burn them at the stake, drown them or murder them in a dark alley. God will smile on you for it.

[noirblanc]

06:17 PM on 05/08/2010

As much as i think they guy is an a$$ ho£e he should be able to express his own views. I support free speech even if it is skewed.

[goodog]

05:47 AM on 05/10/2010

the problem is when you single someone out and start to stalk them, as frequently happens in school when the class f__ becomes the target of religion-tinged bullying... often physical or otherwise threatening and disruptive of the learning and professional environment... so that the targets as well as bystanders are cheated out of their benefit of education by a so-called right to be a bigot.

Believe it or not James Dobson, co-founder along with George Reker's of the Family Research Council...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPMIBIIPNc
(Now run by Tony Perkins)

...campaigns against anti-bullying programs in public school, saying that they're homosexual indoctrination programs and that religious kids have a right and responsibility to harass homosexuals.

[Bcasey11]

01:28 PM on 05/07/2010

wow thank god for our free speech in america. if they try to make laws like that over here they will get riots and rightly so.

[darcdante]

03:14 PM on 05/07/2010

I don't agree with the justification of riots since that implies violence, but free speech is where America still stands as a beacon to the world.

[nexxtep54]

07:21 PM on 05/06/2010

"My freedom was taken away on the hearsay evidence"

This statement is soooo stupid and contradictory on about a gazillion levels.

[darcdante]

06:31 PM on 05/06/2010

No country should try to ban insults. What would we watch on cable news?

[LMPE]

06:24 PM on 05/06/2010

Don't arrest the guy. Tell him that he looks fabulous in whichever clothes he's wearing!

[HorseChowda]

04:49 PM on 05/06/2010

This person shouldn't have been arrested. What they did is exactly the same as going out in the street and proclaiming "Santa Claus hates it when you don't share!". God doesn't exist, and so if someone is insulted by any sort of religious claim, all you have to do is remember that the claim is coming from a delusional person. They can't distinguish reality from fairy tales, and so certainly can't distinguish a sin from a harmless, consensual act between two people.

[livesinreality]

12:19 PM on 05/06/2010

I wish America had the same hate speech laws and a ruling that religious beliefs are not entitled to special protection under the laws of the nation, then America would truly be "America the free".

[darcdante]

06:30 PM on 05/06/2010

No, we would be "America the Free to do what livesinreality defines is good." We either have free speech or we do not.

[nexxtep54]

07:23 PM on 05/06/2010

What you have is bordering on chaos.

[alsm9]

10:21 AM on 05/06/2010

I still think what this preacher was saying is a form of slander. I do understand why people think arresting him may be a threat to freedom of speech, and I do agree that everyone should have the right to this freedom. It's a really slippery slope and a lot of good points have been made on this blog. However, homophobia is still a huge problem in society and there are still injustices committed against this group of people. What about their rights to live in a society where they are treated equal? And I agree that if the law is going to proceed in this way it must cover all religious bigotries, such as Sharia law. I think the issue is complex because words can be just as dangerous as not having the freedom to use them. It's just where and how do we draw the line...can we even draw a line without losing our own rights to freedom of speech?

Slander
1. (Law) Law
a. defamation in some transient form, as by spoken words, gestures, etc.
b. a slanderous statement, etc.
2. any false or defamatory words spoken about a person; calumny

[ThatGuyisaGirl]

07:21 PM on 05/06/2010

How is this anywhere CLOSE to slander? I'm sorry, but just posting the definition to the word doesn't make your first sentence any clearer or less ridiculous.

Did God confirm over tea that He in fact loves the gays? Oh, you two don't talk over tea...I'm not surprised.

[alsm9]

08:15 PM on 05/06/2010

If you are referring to a christian god...there is no such thing.

[darcdante]

03:07 PM on 05/07/2010

Slander has to be spoken about an individual, not an act.

[huffnpuff147]

10:03 PM on 05/05/2010

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

[Gasparilla]

08:51 PM on 05/05/2010

How about the Muslims clerics that have called for Sharia law to be established in their communities. Women legally inferior to men, and that's just the beginning. Where's the arrests for that?

[Rogue Linguist]

09:17 PM on 05/05/2010

That's a very good point. I hope they do crack down on that nonsense--I can see the insidious spectre of religious fundamentalism working its way back into women's lives if they government doesn't step up efforts to protect people's legal rights. In a sense, I can understand where Belgium and France are coming from with their proposed veil bans.

[Danny Nettleton]

10:25 PM on 05/05/2010

So you support intolerance in the name of tolerance? I do think it's bad manners to stand on a street corner and tell people that their lifestyle is sinful. Bad manners and thoroughly unpersuasive, but well within the rights of an individual in a free speech society. Just because one disagrees with the statement doesn't mean that the other person has no right to say it. Think how you'd react to the story if a man were arrested for "hate speech" for saying that capital punishment is evil. Isn't that an offensive value judgement? Just because a thing may be nonsense to you doesn't mean it should be illegal for someone else to say it. I'm amazed that I've read this whole comment section and no one's quoted Voltaire. "Je ne suis pas d'accord avec un mot de ce que vous dites, mais je me battrai jusqu'à la mort pour votre droit de le dire."

[darcdante]

03:10 PM on 05/07/2010

People have the right to wear anything they want, whether it be a bikini or a veil.

[SilentSolidarity]

08:22 PM on 05/05/2010

UK is deeply biased. Just a week ago a UK Court decided that religious beliefs do not provide any evidence thus they are of no importance in front of a Court. Now they say that the word "sin" that is defined by subjective religious beliefs is insulting.

It seems that Christian beliefs are not entitled to special protection under the laws of the UK. But they are entitled to special punishment.

[DemiCrat]

12:43 AM on 05/06/2010

It seems the UK should be equally willing to prosecute any number of the muslims that consistenly 'warn' of violence and condemn anything and everything that doesn't involve the subjugation of women as well. This is nothing more than the stifling of free speech, and doing so in an extremely inconsistent way.

[sisyphus93]

09:19 AM on 05/06/2010

And liberals wonder why conservatives are against the Big Government Nanny State paradigm they so desperately pursue.

Fanned.

[rahonavis]

11:38 AM on 05/06/2010

Sir/madame religion is the ultimate nanny state. If you truly think that allow others to slander and abuse minorities and get away with it if the abuser claims its an honest belief or conviction then you must be ready and support them when Imams call you an infidel, justify violence against you. No matter how sincere a belief is, that does not make it true, and it certainly doesn't absolve the holder of their responsibility to society (you conservatives seem to love to claim that us liberals never hold anyone responsible for our actions, well here is an example of when a right comes with it certain responsibilities on how and when you can use it, and you seem to be decrying our holding someone to those rules).

[sherwoodfamily]

08:08 PM on 05/05/2010

This is the the big difference in the US: While hate crimes are illegal, hate speech is not.

This whole situation is a waste of police resources in England.