Barry “Medieval” Morgan on JS:TO
The Archbishop of Wales called for the comedy musical Jerry Springer: The Opera to be banned last weekend, ahead of its opening at the Wales Millennium Centre next month.
Barry Morgan trotted out the usual arguments.
I think they’ve crossed a line here, because what they say about Jesus in this opera is likely to cause scandal and they’d never get away with saying the same things about the prophet Muhammad.
Yes, Baz. That’s because some Muslims act like barbaric morons if they think their prophet has been insulted. Are you saying this is a good thing? Should we also treat Christian like potential murderers and arsonists? Would that make you feel better?
What they say about Jesus here is blasphemous and gratuitously offensive and I think when an opera does that, then it’s time to call a halt. Why should Christianity endure this kind of offensive blasphemous treatment?
Christianity doesn’t have to “endure” anything. It’s not a person. If a Christian doesn’t want to endure this blasphemy, he needn’t buy a ticket for it. It really is as simple as that.
Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society sums it up:
The archbishop’s comments are deeply misguided. Calling for censorship of a theatrical performance on the grounds that it is ‘blasphemous’ is repressive and risks setting back free speech to medieval times.
True. If you censor one thing to save the feelings of one religious group, pretty soon you’ll have every religious group from Scientologists to Satanists getting “censorship envy” and demanding special protection too.
The comments that seem to follow around JS:TO are almost cliches now. In fact, some things turn up so often, you could have a JS:TO drinking game.
When someone says something like “They wouldn’t do this with Islam” take a sip of your drink.
When someone starts a sentence with “I believe in freedom of speech, but…..” take a sip of your drink.
When someone says that the people of this town don’t want to see a show like this, despite it playing to near-sell out crowds every night, take a sip of your drink.
I could think of more, but frankly, these protests bore me these days.
[…] In the wake of the Archbishop of Wales call to ban JS:TO comes a spirited defence of freedom of speech from Lib Dem Assembly Member for North Wales, Eleanor Burnham. […]