Tag Archives: freedom of speech

A British woman riding public transit has been charged with inciting racial hatred after her vicious rant was posted to YouTube. Police were told about the YouTube video called My Tram Experience, in which a woman with a child on her knee launches a foul-mouthed tirade against her fellow travellers. Swearing repeatedly in the two-and-a-half minute video, she accuses others …

In yet another British case that will surely become a flagship cause for American evangelicals, a street preacher has been charged with a crime for yelling that gays will “burn in hell.” A Christian street preacher has appeared in court charged with verbally abusing a gay couple. Michael Overd, 47, from Creech St Michael in Somerset, allegedly told the men …

“I’m not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they’ve been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they’ve been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn’t be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending …

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ordered a comedian to pay $15,000 in compensation for anti-gay insults he directed towards a lesbian couple during a 2007 show at a Vancouver comedy club. Stand-up comedian Guy Earl was ordered to pay the money to Lorna Pardy, 32, while the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal also ordered the Vancouver restaurant owner, …

Canadian televangelist Pastor Charles McVety is crying censorship after a Christian network canceled his show for “disparaging remarks” he made about gay people. A government broadcasting agency had warned the network that McVety was violating their code of ethical standards. The tension between the reverend and the Christian broadcaster began in December, when the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, an industry …

Two British men have been charged with violating a new law against inciting anti-gay hatred. Razwan Javed, 30, and Kabir Ahmed, 27, were accused of handing out leaflets called ‘The Death Penalty?’ outside a Derby mosque. It reportedly said that gay people should be executed and the pair are also accused of pushing it through letterboxes. The pair were reportedly …

In 2005 former male prostitute and Christian “ex-gay” activist Bill Whatcott, the Canadian version of James Hartline, was found to have violated Saskatchewan’s hate speech law after he stuffed residential mailboxes with pamphlets describing gay men as “filthy pedophiles” and “sodomites.” Last year Whatcott successfully appealed his conviction. Yesterday Canada’s Supreme Court agreed to hear Whatcott’s challenge to the very …

The South Carolina Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a street preacher who was arrested and fined after screaming anti-gay epithets at a lesbian couple. Greenville Circuit Judge Edward Miller had previously upheld Joseph D. Bane’s 2008 conviction, but the Supreme Court said a city rule against remarks that “humiliate, insult or scare” was too vague. All five of …

This is Morality In Media’s annual White Ribbon Against Pornography week and they would like you to start demanding that the police enforce all those laws about folks legally purchasing the legally-made smut featuring legally consenting adults. “The reason we have continued to promote the campaign is because people all across the country find it to be a convenient way …

The Department of Justice has elected to let stand a court ruling which allows Christianists and other religious groups to demonstrate, preach, and proselytize in federal parks. The original case was brought by the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund over a preacher who was made to stop handing out pamphlets at Mount Rushmore. “It was a bureaucratic nightmare,” said Nate Kellum, …

Good As You has an email from Shirley Phelps about her time before the Court yesterday. It begins: I am floating home on a cloud of euphoria. We got to tell the conscience of Doomed america that if they would stop with the proud sin the soldiers would stop dying. Alito was a serious disappointment. I don’t know why I …

The Westboro Baptist Church picketed the White House yesterday in advance of their appearance before the Supreme Court today where the father of a slain U.S. Marine is asking that his $5M judgment against the Phelps family be reinstated. Albert Snyder, of York, Pa., took legal action after church members picketed the funeral of his son. “My son and the …

A federal judge in Missouri ruled yesterday that a ban on political protests near funerals is unconstitutional. In 2006 Missouri legislators passed the ban in an attempt to thwart the Westboro Baptist Church. The primary state law had barred protests near any church, cemetery or funeral establishment from an hour before until an hour after any funeral ceremony, procession or …

Britain’s new government is refusing to lift its predecessor’s travel ban for American radio blowhard Michael Savage unless he “repudiates” his previous inflammatory statements about Muslims and other groups. Savage whines to World Net Daily: Savage today called his ordeal a “true nightmare of Kafka.” “The ‘new’ British government continues ‘the big lie’ initiated by the previous British government, all …

Spawned by a Seattle cartoonist who later denounced the campaign, today is “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.” In response, Pakistan has instituted a block on YouTube, Facebook and other social media sites. Prompted by a court order, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority today told providers to suspend access. The order runs until 31 May. The Facebook group for “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” …

British police have dropped the charges against Rev. Dale McAlpine, the American preacher who was arrested earlier this month after a gay police liaison heard him telling passersby that homosexuality a sin. American anti-gay groups immediately began using McAlpine’s arrest as an example of the so-called homofascism that will roil the United States as a result of the passage of …

As expected, the wingnuts are leaping on the case of the British preacher arrested last week for calling homosexuality a sin. Yesterday it was the American Family Association, today it’s the Family Research Council. Via press release: Homosexuality may be a crime in God’s eyes, but saying so is a punishable crime in England. Last month, Dale McAlpine was on …

The American Family Association is quick out of the box to denounce the homofascists behind the arrest of a British preacher for calling homosexuality a sin. AFA radio host Bryan Fischer: I’ve often said we will have to choose between homosexuality and religious liberty, because we can’t have both. Every advance of the homosexual agenda comes at the expense of …