The Book, the Book, the Book is on fire!
Another week, another email from the American Family Association. Shall we?
In the 27 years of this ministry, I have never witnessed a more outrageous miscarriage of justice than what is happening in Philadelphia. Four Christians are facing up to 47-years in prison and $90,000 in fines for preaching the Gospel on a public sidewalk, a right fully protected by the First Amendment.
Holy cow! Really? That’s awful!
On October 10, 2004, the four Christians were arrested in Philadelphia. They are part of Repent America. Along with founder Michael Marcavage, members of Repent America—with police approval—were preaching near Outfest, a homosexual event, handing out Gospel literature and carrying banners with Biblical messages.
When they tried to speak, they were surrounded by a group of radical homosexual activists dubbed the Pink Angels. A videotape of the incident shows the Pink Angels interfering with the Christians’ movement on the street, holding up large pink symbols of angels to cover up the Christians’ messages and blowing high pitched whistles to drown out their preaching.
Rather than arrest the homosexual activists and allow the Christians to exercise their First Amendment rights, the Philadelphia police arrested and jailed the Christians!
Goodness. As something of a free-speech absolutist, I’m appalled. One thing, though: you say Repent America already “were preaching,” “handing out Gospel literature and carrying banners with Biblical messages,” but then, when “they tried to speak”—tell me, why do you separate the acts of preaching and speaking like that? What, exactly, were y’all doing when you “tried to speak”? —Let’s get another point of view, shall we?
The confrontation began when the 11 protestors marched to the front of a stage at Outfest and began to yell out Biblical passages to drown out the events on stage.
Police attempted to get the protestors to move to to an area on the edge of the site. Instead they went deeper into the gay crowd. Using a bullhorn they condemned homosexuality. They then got into an argument with a group of Pink Angels, who screamed back.
It was at that point police intervened arresting the 11.
Oh.
Hey, look, folks, not to jog your elbow or nothin,’ but most definitions of “speak” aren’t so broad as to include “marching to the front of the stage and yelling out antagonistic slogans so as to disrupt what other people have peaceably assembled to do.” That just doesn’t go without saying. So, your email message? About how they’re “facing up to 47-years in prison and $90,000 in fines for preaching the Gospel on a public sidewalk, a right fully protected by the First Amendment”? Not to tell you your commandments or nothin,’ but that’s perilously close to false witness. Y’all might want to reconsider.
After all, yelling “Faggot!” at a crowded gay pride event is one fuck of a lot closer to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater than, oh, sending out a letter urging resistance to an upcoming draft. So that First Amendment? Not as operational as you seem to think, here. —Yes, I know, it’s a terribly grey area, fraught with complications, rife with the potential for abuse; like anyone who lives in a major American metropolitan area, I’ve seen how the cops will use it to shut down legitimate protest. But y’all went in spoiling for a fight, and you got one. You want my sympathy? You gonna have a problem if we bum-rush the megachurch, carrying Darwin fish emblems and yelling through a bullhorn about how the Christianist faith makes mothers cut their babies’ arms off?
Thought so.
Oh, and one more thing: the Bible has been determined to be hate speech? Really? Are you actually trying to tell me that 2,000 years and 66 books and three-quarters of a million words of theology and philosophy and myth and law and story and peace, love, and understanding can in its essence be boiled down to a couple of verses you like to use to hate on people whose sex lives make you feel uncomfortable somewhere deep inside?
Well, hell. Forget it. We don’t need no water; let the motherfucker burn.
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