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No Prosecution for Anti-Christian London Gay Police Association Ads

Complaints from 50,000 individuals and organizations ignored

By Hilary White

LONDON, September 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After three months of deliberation and over 50,000 complaints from individuals and organizations, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Metropolitan Police have announced that there is “insufficient evidence” to lay charges of discrimination against the Gay Police Association for its June ads depicting Christianity as violent.

The ads appeared in the Independent in June this year and featured a photograph of a Bible next to a pool of blood and the slogan, “In the name of the father.”  The ad copy read, “In the last 12 months, the Gay Police Association has recorded a 74% increase in homophobic incidents where the sole or primary motivating factor was the religious belief of the perpetrator.”

The ads sparked a furore resulting in accusations of hatred against Christians, “Christianophobia,” being investigated by Scotland Yard.

Saturday’s announcement by the CPS is being called just one more instance of a double standard in which investigations of “homophobia” are expedited and action promptly taken, but attacks against Christians are swept under the rug.

British columnists pointed to the irony saying that if the ad had substituted the Qur’an for the Bible, the result would have been much different. British conservative commentator, Iain Dale wrote, “Couldn't you reasonably think that the advert actually incites gay people to hate Christians?”
 
Andrea Minichiello Williams, Public Policy Officer of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship (LCF), said of the CPS decision, decrying the “appearance of discrimination against Christians by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).”

“What further evidence of the advert being an ‘insulting’ publication causing ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ could be needed?” Williams said.

Williams accused the CPS of a double standard, pointing to other decisions the CPS has prosecuted in favour of the gay community’s complaints of discrimination. In 2003, Williams points out, the CPS decided there was sufficient evidence to prosecute an elderly Christian preacher who displayed a sign saying, “Stop homosexuality, Stop immorality. Jesus is Lord” after a “small number” of complaints.

“Why gay rights are regarded as more important than freedom of expression I do not know,” Reverend Rod Thomas, with the Church of England evangelicals, told the Daily Mail. “There is a real danger that those who have tried to support gay rights for liberal reasons may find themselves responsible for suppressing vital liberties.”

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
British Gay Police Association Investigated by Scotland Yard for Anti-Christian Ad
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06072107.html

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