UK: First arrest and prosecution for praying in public case collapses after bungled police investigation

Christian Hacking, 29, was arrested by police after he was seen praying outside an abortion clinic in London earlier this year.

Mr Hacking, who uses a wheelchair after breaking his back during a climbing accident, was arrested and carried into a van by police officers after allegedly failing to comply with a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) outside a Marie Stopes abortion clinic in Ealing, west London.

The international charity, which supports women to have safe abortions, have criticised his “wilful non-compliance with the PSPO” and said that “nobody should face harassment” when accessing their services.

However the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which represented Mr Hacking, said that police bodycam footage of officers “carrying a disabled man and his wheelchair to a riot van, simply for praying, is deeply disturbing”. It also criticised the waste of “vital police resources” after charges against him were dropped.

The PSPO, put in place by Ealing Council in April 2018, was the first buffer zone surrounding an abortion clinic to be introduced in the UK. The exclusion zone, upheld by the Court of Appeal, bans a range of activities within 100m of the clinic - including outlawing prayer.

The PSPO states: ‘[people must not engage] in any act of approval/disapproval or attempted act of approval/disapproval, with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means. This includes but is not limited to graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling.’

Mr Hacking was arrested on August 8 and pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charge of failing to comply with the PSPO. This marked the first case in modern times of arrest and prosecution for praying and he was set to stand trial on November 5 at Uxbridge Magistrates Court.

However, the case collapsed. Although police warned Mr Hacking, who works part time for CBR UK (Center for Bio-Ethical Reform), an American pro-life organisation, they failed to caution him when they intended to arrest him. Instead, they only cautioned Mr Hacking when he was already in the police van.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) sent him a letter stating that the charges were being dropped because there was not ‘enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction’.

Furthermore, the letter added: “The issue of caution being administered at the end of being arrested undermines the prosecution case.”

Police bodycam footage reveals a police officer telling Mr Hacking: "l'm saying you're in breach of the court order,” when he asked for clarification as exactly what he had done wrong.

Mr Hacking then responded: "So it's a criminal offence to pray, according to the court order, it's a criminal offence to pray outside of a place where children are being killed?" The officer then stated:  "I believe that I've given you the answer."

Officers then failed to caution MR Hacking before his arrest.

A Marie Stopes UK spokesperson said: “Nobody should face harassment when accessing a legal, confidential health service, and the Safe Zone around the Marie Stopes West London clinic rightly prohibits a range of activities within 100metres, including prayer. 

“It is disappointing to see wilful non-compliance with the PSPO fail to result in prosecution, however, the Ealing Safe Zone remains a vital measure to ensure anyone accessing abortion services has consistent and necessary protection from intimidation and harassment, and we continue to call for similar protections to be introduced across the UK.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “A 29-year-old man was charged in August 2019 with failing to comply with a public space protection order following an incident in Ealing. The matter was subsequently discontinued.”

A CPS spokeswoman said: “We have a duty to keep cases under continuous review and, following a further assessment, we concluded there was insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.”

SOURCE 






Former Time Magazine Editor Is Wrong. America Doesn’t Need ‘Hate Speech’ Laws.

Will someone in our free press stand up for free speech?

Just as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been harangued by politicians and legacy media journalists about not doing more to censor speech on his social media platform, an opinion column Tuesday in The Washington Post called for passing “hate speech” laws that take direct aim at undermining the suddenly problematic First Amendment.

Richard Stengel, a former editor at Time magazine who then served as the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs under President Barack Obama, argued that the First Amendment is outdated and that America’s unique protection for free speech just doesn’t work anymore.

Stengel wrote that while traveling the world and “championing the virtues of free speech,” he “came to see how our First Amendment standard is an outlier.”

Yes, the First Amendment is an “outlier,” and for that, we should be incredibly thankful as Americans. It is undoubtedly a cornerstone of American exceptionalism.

Not for Stengel, however.

“Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran,” he wrote. “Why, they asked me, would you ever want to protect that?”

As the Washington Examiner’s Becket Adams wrote, Stengel seems to be saying that he looks favorably on anti-blasphemy laws.

Stengel wrote that our broad protections of free speech, which allow “hate speech”—however one may define that—“diminishes tolerance” and “enables discrimination.”

“Isn’t that, by definition, speech that undermines the values that the First Amendment was designed to protect: fairness, due process, equality before the law?” he asked.

The short answer to that long question is: No.

The First Amendment—really, the freedom of speech and freedom of the press more broadly—is necessary not to promote “fairness,” but to help us find the truth.

The Founders—though they disagreed about much else—widely understood that no individual and certainly no government is the bearer of all truth. A free society protects those means to pursue the truth, which necessarily means also protecting speech and ideas that are “wrong” or “hateful.”

As many on Twitter noted, shame on the media for eagerly embracing the idea that the First Amendment is, perhaps, a bad thing and for not responding with a robust defense of the freedoms that make their work possible.

In numerous places around the globe, governments have begun cracking down on hate speech and free speech, setting up government commissions to ultimately decide what is “real” and what is “fake” for the people.

Stengel argues that hate speech laws are designed for the government to prevent hate and terrorism, but what if the governing authorities themselves promote such evil? What then?

Whether under the jackboot authoritarianism of China or the soft despotism rising in Europe, these laws curtailing speech, and putting it under government authority, are ultimately harmful and destructive.

Stengel’s “fair marketplace of ideas” is not a free one. It is a euphemistic argument for inevitable tyranny.

Unfortunately, as a recent poll found, many Americans have come to think that the First Amendment needs a rewrite to fit the “changing cultural norms of today.”

That’s why we aren’t a pure democracy—and why we have laws and institutions that protect individual rights.

The freedom of speech, a God-given right protected by the Constitution, is not subject to revision because of changes in technology or culture. It is simply a timeless right of all men and women, though it has been frequently—and often ruthlessly—violated.

America’s culture of free speech and the First Amendment that protects it are incredible blessings that have been passed down and fostered by generations of self-governing people.

It’s too bad more people in institutions intended to protect these ideas are in fact undermining them.

SOURCE 





Another Win for Blaine Adamson! This Time at the Kentucky Supreme Court

For over seven years, Blaine Adamson has been battling in court for the right to run his business consistently with his faith.

He’s faced many setbacks: boycotts against his promotional printing company, Hands On Originals; hateful emails, phone calls, and Facebook comments; and some customers even pulled their business. All of this because Blaine runs his business consistently with his faith.

But Blaine has also seen many triumphs. And today was another big win! The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in favor of Blaine. Praise God!

It all started in 2012 when Blaine received a phone call from the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO). The group wanted Hands On Originals to print shirts promoting the local pride festival. Blaine determined that he could not print those shirts because they would express messages in conflict with his faith.

This wasn’t new for Blaine. He serves everyone, but he cannot express every message. Blane routinely declines requests for projects with messages that conflict with his beliefs. From 2010 to 2012 alone, Hands On Originals declined at least 13 orders because of their messages, including shirts with a violent message, shirts promoting a strip club, and pens supporting a sexually explicit video.

As he always does, Blaine offered to connect the GLSO with another print shop that he knew would create the shirts at the same price he would have charged. But that wasn’t enough for the GLSO.

The GLSO publicized Blaine’s decision, which led to protests and boycotts against Hands On Originals. The group also filed a discrimination complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission, which ruled against Blaine and ordered him to undergo “diversity training” and print messages that conflict with his religious beliefs.

Blaine knew that this was a violation of his First Amendment rights to free speech and religious freedom. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, Blaine has been asking the courts to uphold his freedom to live and work consistently with his faith.

Two lower courts had already ruled for Blaine. And now, the Kentucky Supreme Court has too! The unanimous court said that the GLSO did not have a legal right to sue Hands On Originals.

If the government can force Blaine to support messages that violate his deeply held beliefs, then it can force anyone to do the same. This includes an LGBT printer who declines to create t-shirts criticizing same-sex marriage, a Democratic speechwriter who declines to write speeches for the Republican National Convention, or a Muslim singer who declines to sing Christian songs at a concert.

Protecting these freedoms is vital to us all. Because if we want freedom for ourselves, we must extend it to others—even those with whom we disagree.

The Kentucky Supreme Court didn’t directly address the broader First Amendment questions concerning Blaine’s right to live and work consistently with his faith. But we are committed to defending that freedom.

SOURCE 




Don't demean, ignore or dismiss dads' daily devotion

Chris Kenny writes from Australia, using British/Australian idioms, where "bloke" = "man"


My daddy blog could be a major hit, generating millions of hits and thousands of dollars as fathers flock to read think pieces on the hardships of being a dad, swap tips on coping with the work/family balance, and share a whinge about how their wives don't understand.

Or perhaps not generally speaking, blokes just aren't into this. Eavesdrop on a walk around the park or at the cafe and you'll know women discuss these life and relationship issues endlessly, swapping ideas and supporting each other.

Blokes tend not to; we are wired differently. Sure, some might be outraged that I've made such a generalisation, and yes, there will be exceptions to prove the rule, but we all recognise the essential truth here. This is not a value judgment, it is
just reflecting reality.

The reason I mention this is because I think fathers get a bad rap. Fatherhood seems undervalued. It is constantly measured against motherhood — if only mothers could have wives, if only fathers did what mothers do — and fatherhood always comes up short.

There seems to be an underlying resentment that motherhood can be different to fatherhood, that fathers seem to get it easy, and so fatherhood can be diminished. Yet fathers have never done more, nor been more flexible and involved in parenting arrangements.

Fathers do brilliant work every day, something that should be celebrated, nurtured and encouraged rather than dismissed or derided. Motherhood and fatherhood, are different, obviously, equal but different

Thanks to technology and changing social norms there is now a high level of flexibility around shared responsibilities. Sure, as a father of four, I have a dog in this fight. But believe me this is not a competition. There is not a father alive who is not in awe of mothers and motherhood. Most mothers work miracles daily, their physical and emotional energy and endurance make the world go around and their juggling of parental responsibilities and careers is extraordinary.

We hear a lot about this in books, on websites, in newspapers and magazines and on television and radio, where mothers are supported, celebrated and encouraged. This is all to the good — I am not averse to dipping into this genre to enlighten myself.

But this column is about dads. In our age of priestly pedophile scandals, predatory criminals and gender quotas, we should not forget that to improve options for women and protect children we need to leverage the good works of fathers, not diminish them in campaigns against toxic masculinity or outdated gender stereotypes.

Where biology once determined a divide in duties between mothers and fathers, it plays a much smaller role now, with couples able to swap or share almost all tasks. Yet, surely, just as we shouldn't be slaves to traditional roles, we don't need to be prescriptive about the future. Let us have our options and choose.

If, even in the most prosperous and enlightened of societies, most families opted for traditional roles, who would be so arrogant or ideological as to condemn their life choices?

In my household, both parents are busy with careers and the daily rush between drop-offs, pick-ups, cricket, footy, music, nippers and incidentals is as demanding as it is chaotic. As the dad, could I pay more attention to the logistics and perhaps do a little more of the cooking? Sure.

But fatherhood is not some blissful dream of unburdened genetic distribution. Halfway through drafting this column, on top of the usual pick-ups, meal preparations and bath duties, I discovered new-found skills in amateur make-up artistry and costume arrangements for Halloween hijinx.

Fatherhood is the school of lifelong learning. In her recent essay Men at Work, Annabel Crabb interrogated the differing expectations we have of fathers and mothers. She asked why we were so interested in how New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern would cope as a prime ministerial mum, yet were not fussed by how Scott Morrison would get his girls off to school in the mornings.

Quite obviously, our Prime Minister was not gestating, delivering and nursing a child, so there are biological imperatives that are unavoidable in this case. But Crabb makes a telling point when she asks:

"What I want to know is: why do we expect so little of fathers? Why do we fret so extensively about the impact on children of not seeing their mothers enough, but care so little about what happens when it's Dad who's always away? Do we think dads are just for weekends? 'Or are we simply so roundly prepared — based on what we see — for their absence that we neither mourn it nor remark on it?"

This is where we need that daddy blog. Families expect an enormous amount from dads, and dads expect everything from themselves. The daily strain is all about parenting, providing, presence and prioritising; surely most mothers see fathers in this daily juggling act. There are bad fathers, just as there are bad mothers, but my daily brushing of shoulders with dads over more than 30 years as a parent only fills me with optimism and admiration for what they do with and for their families.

Crabb used Morrison and Josh Frydenberg as the laboratory rats in her analysis. Their vocational demands and enforced absences make them extreme examples. Over the years, I have had private discussions with each of them about the joy and devotion of their parenthood. The absences of politics make family life difficult and most politicians know they won't do it forever. They work through shared responsibilities with husbands, wives and wider families, to cope as best they can.

For all that, they are no orphans. Many families across the country deal with one parent or another on night shift, flying in and out on a 10-day turnaround, or deployed overseas with defence forces. Most often it is dad who is away, but certainly not always.

This is what families do. We make choices and share burdens for the benefit of our family, not to fit the expectations of some progressive social experiment. Families do not exist to fulfil some idyllic Brave New World of non-gendered roles and cookie-cutter parenting. Families are dynamic organisms and, like snowflakes, all have different designs. Whether it is socially ingrained or deeply embedded in our DNA, like a mother's nurturing instincts, fathers feel a deep-seated responsibility to provide for their family. Most fathers would sooner endure any absence than stay home and feel they are failing their family.

"I'd always been quietly enraged by the interviews with female CEOs that start with the question of how they manage their families along with their jobs," wrote Crabb.

This intrigued me. As a dad, I have always wondered why on earth we don't get asked. It has never seemed patronising for women to be asked this question; how could it be belittling to be asked about something so vital to us?

Rather, it has always seemed insulting that men are spared the questions. Just because we don't blog about fatherhood, are we assumed to be uninterested? Like most fathers, I suspect, I think of myself first and foremost as a father. It is that role that defines me, to myself and to all those I love.

Fatherhood is the greatest privilege and heaviest responsibility; a daily journey of success and failure, overwhelming joy and deepest hurt, duty and indulgence, pride and anxiety, constant learning and endless aspiration. We fathers know this; we seldom discuss it openly in the way mothers might share their trials and tribulations, but we check in on each other, and we watch and learn and emulate.

I have been privileged to grow up surrounded by superb male role models. Men who are strong and gentle, brave and kind, wise and loving. Men like my father, who I always knew valued fatherhood above all else, and his brothers, the eldest of whom was buried this week, surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grand-children, amid stories of his patience, wit, devotion and kindness.

I had uncles on my mother's side scarred by Changi or being orphaned young, but who grew to impart tenderness through calloused hands.

At kids' weekend sport there is masculinity aplenty without a hint of toxicity, as boys and girls learn to take risks, succeed and fail. There is a nonchalant benevolence in all this, lighting a path for our children.

We risk missing one of the most valuable influences in our community life if we somehow demean, ignore or dismiss this daily devotion of dads. Crabb, maybe, reaches a similar realisation. "Now," she writes, "I don't get mad when female leaders are asked that question. It's a bloody sensible question. Now I just get mad when male leaders aren't asked it. Not asking is actually, in itself, quite a powerful message. It says, 'No one expects you to care about this'."

Yes, not asking about families insults men. Don't blame the dads. Ask them sometime, they might never shut up. Being a dad, like being a mum, is to surrender yourself to a life that supersedes your own — a crushing and enlivening realisation that your own interests will never again be pre-eminent, there is another life for whom you would, in the twinkling of an eye, surrender your own. Life that depends on you, a weight that is somehow uplifting, ever-present and inspiring. Dads know it and live it every day.

From the "Weekend Australian" of 2 Nov., 2019

******************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

************************************