LGBT figures lobby for clamp down on anti-gay preaching after charges dismissed in two prosecutions
LGBT figures have called for a clamp down on street preaching against homosexuality – after a Banbridge man was acquitted of criminal charges twice in one week.
So began an article by reporter Philip Bradfield in which the “News Letter” invited a number of LGBT stakeholders to respond to the above developments..
It’s opening paragraph reads:
“Banbridge man Ryan Williamson, 44, was arrested in Larne and Dundalk last August and September respectively after preaching against homosexuality and was charged with public order offences. However his defence lawyers successfully defended him from all charges on 27 and 22 June respectively, citing his European Convention Human Rights of freedom of expression and association. Two associates, Sean Paul Tully and Robert Ervine, were also arrested and cleared in Dundalk.
In the same week, the outgoing Presbyterian Moderator told that “we will not rewrite” the Bible on issues such as same sex marriage and transgenderism.”
NI street preachers, from left to right, Sean Paul Tully, Ryan Williamson, and Robert Ervine.
All three were arrested by Garda in Dundalk in September after preaching against homosexuality.
All charges against them were dismissed last month.
The report states:
Aisling Play of the ‘Rainbow Project’ says: “The Rainbow Project has raised concerns around the impact on LGBTQIA+ people and their families around the ongoing homophobia, biphobia and transphobia being shared by street preachers in Belfast city centre,” she said.
“The Rainbow Project are firm advocates of the right to religious freedom and to freedom of expression. The European Convention on Human Rights protects religious freedom and freedom of expression, but these are not absolute. For example, freedom of speech doesn’t give you the right to defame or harass people or engage in unlawful activity.
“We are deeply concerned around the impact street preachers in Belfast, who seem to be exclusively focused on sexual orientation and gender, are having on LGBTQIA+ people and our wider society. Substantial concerns that have been raised by local retailers in Belfast city centre around the impact of on street preachers. Over forty impact statements had been forwarded to Belfast City Council and a number of representatives went before the Strategic Policy and Resources committee to speak about their concerns. Hate Crime against LGBTQIA+ people reported to the PSNI is up 34% in the last year. This is clear evidence that LGBTQIA+ people still face harassment and discrimination daily in Northern Ireland. The Rainbow Project will continue to work towards achieving a strong legal framework which can uphold rights around freedoms of expression and religion that also ensure that hatred and prejudice against individuals due to their sexual orientation or gender identity will not be tolerated in public spaces.”
The ‘News Letter’ article goes on: “The tension between the two sides of the debate is likely to be tested much further in future.
The Department of Justice is framing new hate crime legislation which critics say could break new ground by allowing police jurisdiction to investigate conversations around family dinner tables.
And the Department of Communities is framing new legislation to outlaw gay ‘conversion therapy’ which critics say could criminalise clerics offering pastoral care to parishioners on issues of sexuality and identity.
The recent Presbyterian General Assembly Expressed concern about the Secretary of State taking up new powers which allow him to progress his plans to bypass Stormont departments and impose UN recommendations on sex education and gender on all NI Schools.”
This is my brief response to these garrulous haters of God’s truth!
The ‘Rainbow Project’, an organisation which claims that it is “ . . a health organisation that works to improve the physical, mental & emotional health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual people and their families in Northern Ireland said it has raised concerns about open air preachers and is working towards achieving “a strong legal framework” on the issues”, though it utterly fails to consider what the Word of God says regarding where its members are destined for in eternity!
Aisling Play of the Rainbow Project, a pro-sodomite organisation, is reported as saying: “it has raised concerns about open air preachers and is working towards achieving ‘a strong legal framework” on the issues.”
She goes on to complain: “The Rainbow Project has raised concerns around the impact on LGBTQIA+ people and their families around the ongoing homophobia, biphobia and transphobia being shared by street preachers in Belfast city centre.”
She then makes the dishonest claim concerning her organisation: “The Rainbow Project are firm advocates of the right to religious freedom and to freedom of expression. The European Convention on Human Rights protects religious freedom and freedom of expression, but these are not absolute. For example, freedom of speech doesn’t give you the right to defame or harass people or engage in unlawful activity.”
I say ‘dishonest’ for anyone who can defend the defiance of God’s Word as does the sodomite ‘LGBTQIA+’ community, will MOST CERTAINLY NOT believe in the freedom to preach the Word they despise and defy!
She continues: “We are deeply concerned around the impact street preachers in Belfast, who seem to be exclusively focused on sexual orientation and gender, are having on LGBTQIA+ people and our wider society. Substantial concerns that have been raised by local retailers in Belfast city centre around the impact of on street preachers. Over forty impact statements had been forwarded to Belfast City Council and a number of representatives went before the Strategic Policy and Resources committee to speak about their concerns.”
I cannot speak on behalf of the street preachers she is referring to for the simple reason I have never heard their preaching. However, even if they did ‘exclusively focus’ on wicked ‘sexual orientation and gender’, this would be no more wrong than a person standing outside a burning house and shouting exclusively ‘FIRE, FIRE’ Are they to be faulted that they don’t cry out ‘MURDER’, ROBBERY’? The issue is FIRE and fire only.
There is an issue that needs to be emphatically dealt with today and that is the growing and spreading of the sin, I could well say, cult, represented by the sodomite LGBTQIA+ community. The acronym, ‘LGBTQIA+’ is in itself and indication of the spreading and branching out like some noxious weed, that the perversions linked this community. Soon, it would appear, they will need the whole alphabet to represent the perversity they embrace!
This amalgam of deviants is given ‘specific’ attention in the Word of God as something that will be manifested particularly in the last days. Indeed, the Lord Jesus tells us that the world will become as a virtual ’Sodom and Gomorrah’ by the time He returns to this earth to take unto Himself His redeemed people and to judge the wicked rebellious. Paul the apostle writes: “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day,” 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10.
It is an act of kindness to clearly warn those who by their ungodly lifestyle, face such terror. Note Paul’s words: The Lord Jesus will come taking “vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The sins represented and defended by the ‘Rainbow Project’ are specifically mentioned by the Saviour when He set forth the state of the world when He returns. “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed,” Luke 17:28-30.
The inhabitants of that ill-fated city were utterly complacent about how heaven saw their wickedness or how provocative was their lifestyle in the eyes of God. “They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.” They continued unperturbed in their sinful ways. They had mocked at the warning of Lot, as is clearly seen in his own son-law’s reaction: “And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law,” Genesis 19:14.
Is this not the reaction of the ‘LGBTQIA+’ community today. They likewise ‘make sport’ (the meaning of the word mocked) of the warning of the gospel. They make the most outrageous claims against any who would earnestly echo the words of Lot concerning the most certain judgment which is fast approaching this world and especially those given over to the abhorrent sins of the ‘LGBTQIA+’!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
4th July 2022