Is It A Sin To Disagree With Me?

I may not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.

A preacher has been arrested for publicly declaring his belief that homosexuality is a sin. He has been charged under the UK’s Public Order Act, which forbids using abusive or insulting language.

At what point does an expressed opinion become hate speech?

Dale McAlpine was handing out tickets to heaven, upon which were printed the ten commandments, when he was approached by woman who asked him questions about his faith.

The Telegraph reports “he says he quietly listed homosexuality among a number of sins referred to in 1 Corinthians, including blasphemy, fornication, adultery and drunkenness.”

After the woman walked away, she was approached by a PCSO [volunteer police officer] who spoke with her briefly and then walked over to Mr McAlpine and told him a complaint had been made, and that he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.

The street preacher said he told the PCSO: “I am not homophobic but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator”.

He claims that the PCSO then said he was homosexual and identified himself as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender liaison officer for Cumbria police. Mr McAlpine replied: “It’s still a sin.”

Afterwards he began a sermon while standing on top of a step-ladder about the sins of adultery and drunkenness. Twenty minutes later three officers arrived and arrested him. He has since been released on bail and the promise that he does not preach in public.

This is ridiculous. Dale McAlpine is wrong, in my opinion, but we can’t go around arresting people we disagree with, even if we find those thoughts disgusting and disturbing. He expressed his opinion in a private conversation. Perhaps his voice carried, perhaps it didn’t, but either way there is no justification for restricting what two people say to one another.

The PCSO clearly used his position of relative power (he’s only a volunteer community officer) to teach this guy a lesson. The fact that three bona fide officers of the law decided to back him up and throw this 42 year old Baptist in the slammer is the really disgusting and disturbing part of this story.

There are some ideas floating around this world that have the potential to cause great evil. If you lock away the people who perpetuate those thoughts you give them legitimacy. The only way to defeat them is to take them head on, and point by point knock those arguments down.

Some thoughts, on the other hand, are so silly that we can let them go. Like car exhaust, they float past us causing momentary discomfort, but are gone before the injury even registers.

Whichever Dale was spouting, the officers’ abuse of power was simply wrong.

And what threat did he really pose? Standing on the step-ladder, handing out tickets to heaven and hoping that his voice would carry over the hum of shoppers, the preacher was probably happy that anyone stopped by to talk to him at all.