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The Pink News today reports that the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) have accused Christian Voice of hypocrisy after Stephen Green recently claimed to be responsible for the Gay Police Association’s “bloody bible” advert.

A spokesman told the Pink News:

“A few weeks ago Christians were complaining about Iqbal Sacranie (former head of the Muslim Council of Britain) and Lynette Burrows (author) being questioned by the police for making anti-gay remarks. They claimed at the time that it infringed their freedom of speech. We agreed with them.

“But now they are celebrating because gays are being investigated over supposed ‘Christianophobic’ allegations. It seems the ultimate in hypocrisy, but this is the way it seems to be going. Christians must have the right to defame and insult gays, but we mustn’t answer back or its blasphemy and persecution. It heralds a new front on the war that religion has declared against gay people.”

Gay Christian organisations are also condemning Christian Voice. The Reverend Martin Renolyds of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement said:

Of course Christian Voice are going to celebrate this , the basic premise of the GPA advert is true, unfortunately some Christians and other religious groups have and do advocate harm to gay people,.

“Religious fundamentalists represent a real threat to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, they cannot be ignored.”

GALHA secratary George Broadhead has written a letter to the GPA expressing support for their stance. He said:

It is outrageous that Christians should suggest that complaints about their homophobia amount to an attack on their ‘religious freedom’. It increasingly appears that ‘religious freedom’ amounts to a freedom to attack and insult gay people.

“The Government’s granting of exemptions from equality legislation to allow religious groups to go on discriminating against gay people is an example of this. Under the new Goods and Services Discrimination Regulations which come into effect in October, it will be illegal to discriminate against gay people in the provision of goods and services from that date, but religious groups are pressing for exemptions that would allow them, uniquely, to continue to do so. How religious people can claim that their faith is not homophobic is incomprehensible.”

That last point hits the nail on the head perfectly. These organisations say that their religion is not homophobic, and yet want to discriminate against gays. Some of these, such as the Christian Institute are even registered charities. How discriminatory organisations are allowed to be charities is beyond me. But with holy Tony wanting to have US-style “faith based” welfare (read Chrisitan/Islamic based welfare) it could become more common in future.

MWW of course joins GALHA in expressing support for the GPA’s stance. As we mentioned in the original post on this, if the complaint against them is succesful, it would be illegal to suggest that religious belief can lead to violence.