Article 8 Alliance and Parents' Rights Coalition volunteers just spent a weekend at the Vision New England evangelical Christian convention in Boston. They displayed a poster warning the churchgoing attendees that soon, unless they fought for their rights, their churches would be required by the state to perform same-sex "weddings". If their pastor were to criticize homosexuality, or their church were to refuse to hire an open homosexual, they may soon be charged with unlawful discrimination. Many who spoke with us understood and agreed, but some scoffed.
We are sometimes called alarmists for warning churches and individuals that they may soon be criminally charged with hate speech, should they dare to question the forced acceptance of homosexuality. But remember--it says in our Massachusetts constitution that we may not discriminate on the basis of "sexual orientation". That was the open door for the "same-sex marriage" ruling. And it will be the open door for HATE SPEECH prosecutions.
[To understand the dangers inherent in irrational linguistic inventions such as "sexual orientation", see the article by Scott D. Liveley, Esq., Deciphering "Gay" Word-Speak and Language of Confusion.]
The Swedes, at least a decade more "progressive" than us backwards Americans, have taken that next step. They're prosecuting and and sentencing to prison religious dissenters. The Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) has an update on the Swedish pastor convicted of a hate crime for daring to preach that homosexuality is a sin (first reported in the Washington Post on 1/29/05). Why don't they arrest pastors for preaching on the sinfulness of adultery, theft, or murder?
[From the TVC report:]
February 3, 2005 – Pastor Ake Green is challenging Sweden’s hate crime law for a sermon he preached against homosexuality in the summer of 2003. Green’s ordeal is chronicled in the Washington Post (January 29, 2005). In his sermon against homosexuality, Green said that homosexual behavior is a “deep cancerous tumor in the entire society” and that his nation is facing a disaster of major proportions.
Green’s sermon was published in a local newspaper and he was indicted and convicted of hate speech and sentenced to 30 days in jail. He has remained free pending an appeal.
Pastor Green’s sermon was considered hate speech because Sweden expanded its hate crime law in 2002 to add “sexual orientation” as a protected class.
Pastor Green said that if his sentence is upheld, it “will diminish freedom of speech in Sweden, and that will mean we can’t teach everything the Bible says. They’ll go further and say we can’t preach about other things, either.”
Green’s ordeal in Sweden is a forewarning of the persecution that awaits Christian preachers here in the United States if states continue to add “sexual orientation” to hate crime laws.
