Comments on: JS:TO blasphemy case update

By: Paul Tavener

Paul Tavener — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:32:24 +0000

in some ways I wish that he would win the case as it would create such a big upset that “something would have to be done”

By: Stuart W

Stuart W — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 09:50:14 +0000

Stephen Green on the right to be offensive in September 2006:

“Should the police have a partisan unit whose job is to round up Christian dissidents, treat them like thought criminals and trample on freedom of speech?

…I am constantly hearing stories of Christian preachers being told to shut up by bullying police officers with personal issues or axes to grind. In most cases they simply comply. But if we are to safeguard our historic freedoms, someone has to make a stand.”

Remove the log from your own eye Mr Green, before you remove the splinter from somebody else’s.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:10:25 +0000

‘Mr Green wants to prosecute Jonathan Thoday for the production of the play and Mark Thompson, then Director-General of the BBC, for the broadcast’

‘Then Director General’… does the Times know something we don’t?

By: marc

marc — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:24:55 +0000

I wish that bell was ringing for religion. All I’m hearing is that the two sides are becoming more extreme (with the religious in a highly vocal minority).

By: Andy Armitage

Andy Armitage — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:38:26 +0000

You may find this hard to believe, but John "Massah" Beyer wrote about blasphemous libel in 2002 - for a gay, atheist magazine. Yup, he did one in Gay & Lesbian Humanist as part of that (now folded) magazine's special feature pages on the that infamous "blasphemous libel" trial against Gay News in the 1970s. I was editor of G&LH at the time and decided I'd like him to make a contribution. I think he was a bit suspicious at first, and all our exchanges were email, as far as I remember, but he eventually came on board. I don't think he added much, but we gave him a platform. The features we commissioned make interesting reading, even if I do say so myself, as one of the contributors.