The US takes the lead, for now, because the UK just had to do something right. The American huckster and religious fraud, Franklin Graham, was booked to tour the UK with at least 7 planned venues. Now, though, every single venue has cancelled him, citing his anti-LGBT+ fanaticism and hate as the reason. Thumbs up for the UK!
As you might guess, Graham is now having a hissy fit, and as many American loons do, is threatening to sue.
A spokesperson told right-wing Christian outlet CBN: “Since the original venues have broken our legal contract with them, we are pursuing appropriate actions based on grounds of religious discrimination and freedom of speech.
“The Gospel always faces opposition, so we will prayerfully and boldly continue to press forward so that the Good News of God’s love and forgiveness will be proclaimed in all of the cities we have planned to visit.”
This is a guy who has preached that the gays are the enemy and should be kicked out of schools and churches, so I think God’s love is a lie. He also seems to agree that we should be selective in who we allow into our institutions, which rather defeats his case.
I think he is welcome to run his crusade with a UK tour of church basements, prayerfully.
As I understand it, under UK law in a civil suit, the loser has to pay the winner’s costs. Go for it Franklin.
It’s a pity he didn’t get to travel and try his hate speech. He’d swiftly learn that Commonwealth nations really intensely dislike hate speech and divisive speech. Dislike it to the point of prison for the speaker, regardless of nation of origin.
Just had someone ask me about this. Their question was about whether and how EU human rights law applies to a situation like this, and would have been a very interesting one just a week ago.
Ooops.
The cartoon reminds me of a recent comment I made (under one of my alias) on Dispatches:
To the average right winger, the USA isn’t just geographic location, it’s a religion.
Apple pie, Mom, “amber waves of grain,” baseball, Star-spangled banners, Sunday services, July 4, hunting and fishing, cowboys, rugged individualism, gumption, grit, and free market capitalism are it’s holy symbols, holidays, sacraments, and catechisms. Like most deities, America is supposedly is a perfect, omnipotent, and jealous god who will have no competitors. “Socialism,” “globalism,” “multiculturalism” etc. are anathemas to the American creed, and like all sins, heresies, and blasphemous they must be stomped out before they corrupt and condemn us to “Hell:” welfare statism, gun control, “Big Government,” desegregation and “miscegenation,” women’s liberation, increased sexual freedom and LGBTQ rights, and a host of other unholies that will supposedly make life unbearable.
Garcia [i.e. Rodney Garcia, a Montana state representative who recently claimed that the U.S. constitution explicitly orders that “socialists” be arrested and executed] is an fundamentalist American, one who believes in the inerrancy of America, it’s founders, and moral character and is threatened by belief or change that challenges that vision. Therefore, if the Constitution–a holy write in itself–doesn’t expressly say that “socialists should be arrested and execution” it’s only because we heretics aren’t reading it correctly. So they point to passages about “treason” and “Enemies” claiming that socialists or others who don’t adhere to of deny the American Gospel must the very class of people who the sainted founders were talking about.
wzrd1 @2
“He’d swiftly learn that Commonwealth nations really intensely dislike hate speech and divisive speech.”
Here’s a list of Commonwealth nations. I think I see one or two that may disagree with you and maybe a couple that would have no issue with what Graham has to say about homosexuality…. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Nations
Maybe the venues should claim they were abiding by the dictates of their religious faith, you know, like the US adoption agencies denying gay couples…
The anglophone world thanks Rupert Murdoch every day for his service.
Let’s see how long it take for Graham to catch up with Steven Anderson.
@4 I’ve had similar thoughts, if you’ll recall ( https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/01/25/rainbows-are-so-wicked-and-perverted/ ) Which is why I’ve always thought it futile to hurl biblical counter-quotes at these people. They’re only christians at this point because that’s what they’re supposed to be due to their real religion. They’ll be making Hugh Beaumont their patron saint next, I shouldn’t wonder.
Like Limbaugh, there’s another latter day Goebbels who can’t die a horrible, painful, lingering death too soon.
Main person the uk racing to the bottom today appears to be the Scottish Finance minister.
Too bad there’s no First Amendment in the UK, eh?
@ 2 wzrd1
I wonder if some of the cancellations were on thier lawyers’ advice. BTW, TABBY has a point. “Some” Commonwealth countries” may be better wording.
I remember a fem years ago some crazed, racist, US Republican was to speak at the University of Ottawa. The president of the university wrote her a nice letter pointing out that Canadian hate speech laws would apply to her and she suddenly cancelled.
Graham is too ignorant to know the UK doesn’t have a First Amendment, rather, those “rights” may be subject to all kinds of restrictions. Pound sand, Franklin, or, as they say in the UK, bugger off!
@ 11 Nemo
Too bad there’s no First Amendment in the UK, eh?
What a pity. Graham & et Co. probably have not figured that out nor realized that there are hate speech laws that could have put Graham in jail.
Very few of our churches have basements. Lots of them have crypts, though, usually behind heavy, wrought-iron gates fitted with extremely solid locks.
Will Richard Dawkins boldly speak out against this insidious deplatforming?
@3 if I remember correctly, on the human rights law subject, what counts is that the UK is a member of the Council of Europe, which is a different thing as the European Union (Russia is a member of the CoE, not of the EU for example).
The Brexit was a decision of leaving the European Union, not the Council, and thus the UK is still subjected to the European Court of Human Rights
There is talk of replacing or amending the Human Rights Act (which render the court decision binding), but it’s not the case now or in the short term
Wow I hadn’t realized that he was such a bigot until fairly recently as I don’t keep track of any of those public preachers . Good for the UK. I had a gay friend almost die 50 years ago because a bigot decided that he had the right to abuse gays . I remember being shocked speechless. Don’t ever want to feel like that again
I would note that Oz is also in the running–and they are trailing flames off of their asses!
“The Gospel always faces opposition” – don’t these people love to play the martyr!
If Franklin Graham really wants to stick it to the English, he should begin boycotting their language–simply refuse to write or say anything in English ever again. That would show them!!!
The moron has a problem with hate speech if trying to chase legal recourse. He would be laughed out of court.
I guess only god is required to forgive, not Frankie-boy. Same old “christian” hypocracy.
Well, considering Graham doesn’t live in the country where the venues are located and the UK would be within their rights to ban him from the country entirely for the exact same reasons, I doubt that’s going anywhere.
@Akira: There’s actually a whole Wikipedia page on that phenomenon. American Civil Religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion
If the venues have broken a contract, he could be successful, though not on the grounds mentioned. But I’d expect the venues to have included get-out clauses.