THY SHALT NOT OFFEND, EVER!

Twenty years ago I made a short film, Visions of Ecstasy, which was refused a certificate for release on the grounds that it was potentially blasphemous, effectively banning the film and stopping it from ever being shown. In the summing up I was deemed to have ‘outraged the divinity of Christ’ and it was feared that the public broadcasting or distribution of my film was a threat to public order and since then, for better or worse, ‘visions’ has sat on my shelf gathering dust. Preserving God’s divinity and saving the country’s streets from riots and baying mobs seeking divine retribution. As a result of this I have had, aside from a loathing of State censorship, an equally strong dislike of religion, particularly when followers of a religion seek to use the State to enforce their values. So it was with some surprise this week that I found myself not only siding with some Christians but actually getting angry on their behalf as the zealots of political correctness, appeasement and ‘cultural diversity’ sought to further the advancement of their new PC Jerusalem by censoring personal beliefs and the dress of Christians.

In the first of three separate incidents, a Christian couple, Ben and Vogelenzang, were charged with breaching Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which apparently covers causing harassment, alarm or distress, because they allegedly insulted a Muslim woman. The Muslim in question was staying at the Bounty House Hotel in Liverpool, which is run by the Vogelenzangs, when a conversation arose about her faith. During the chat one of the topics discussed was whether Jesus was a minor prophet as Islam teaches or whether he was the son of God as Christianity teaches.

It was further stated by the fun-loving intellectual Mr Vogelenzang, that Mohammed was a warlord, while the equally philosophical Mrs Vogelenzang stated that she thought the burka was a form of bondage for women. Apparently this line of conversation so outraged the woman that she felt compelled to rush to the nearest policeman who, instead of telling her to grow up and get a life, questioned the Christian couple and charged them with a ‘religiously-aggravated public order offense’. They are now awaiting trial.

Now, to my mind, having a chat or an argument about politics or religion or whatever is what makes the world go round, and a religiously-aggravated assault would have meant that the Christians had donned Mahamoud Ahmadi-Nejad face masks and fist-fucked Ms sanctimonious up the arse while reciting the ten commandments and telling her to convert, as opposed to having a quiet tete-á-tete about the pros and cons of shrink-to-fit burkas. Still, I’m sure that the police know best and rounding up Christian law-breakers is really going to make us all feel safe out on the streets.

The UK’s next ‘feed them to the lions’ moment came when Exeter NHS nurse, Shirley Chaplin (no relation to Charlie, though he probably scripted her case), refused to remove her crucifix neckless and now faces the sack. Chaplin is the second nurse this year to suffer this fate as NHS nurse Caroline Petrie was suspended in February for the same ‘offense’. Chaplin has apparently worn her crucifix for 38 years without hordes of non Christians running out of Exeter’s NHS hospitals in shock and horror that a ‘christian’ was openly walking the wards.

It would have been interesting had Exeter’s wannabe twat-boy suicide bomber, Muslim convert Nicky Reilly, not failed in his attempt to blow up a café to see whether the local NHS authorities would have rushed around getting Muslim nurses to remove their ‘approved’ headscarves in case they gave offense to non-muslim infidels who had just had their limbs blown off? I doubt it.

The UK’s third Christian pogrom has, surprise, surprise, come from the Government, where so much nonsense comes from these days, and is contained in the hysteria-driven new legislation called ‘lets protect little children from everything and wrap them in cotton wool until they are 18’, or the ‘Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA)’, as it's more popularly known.

Under this new legislation, anyone coming within two miles of children has to be vetted by the ISA to see if they are a crazed sexual predator, murderer or a Scout master whose idea of getting ‘hands-on’ experience is to turn the local camp into a nonce nirvana. Christians, who are well known for their happy-clappy-touchy-feely tendencies, are of course worried that the authorities have singled out the ‘touchy-feely’ part of the bible for special attention, and they have.

From summer 2010, everyone from School governors to dentists and nurses (though not crucifix-wearing ones as they will have all been sacked) must have their backgrounds checked by the ISA, as must authors who visit schools and parents who organise lifts to sports matches and so on. Christians fear that, because of their beliefs on homosexuality, marriage and of course shrink-to-fit burkas, they could be unfairly targeted by this legislation and have their careers ruined as a result, which, given current trends, is quite likely. So now the UK's Christians, the people that for years who were seen as the guiding moral force in the land, the people who used to pack our churches on a Sunday morning and whose quaintness was, like rain on bank holidays, robins and Rupert annuals, forever England, are now being persecuted by the forces of multiculturalism, mediocrity and modernity.

Normally, the trials of tribulations of a few Christians would, like the idle wind, pass me by, but such is the speed and unceasing advance of political correctness, appeasement and abasement by the authorities to all things Islamic that I felt genuinely aggrieved by their plight. In particular because petty officialdom mixed with an almost fawning desire to please and carry favour with all things Sharia (note the Home Office announcement to its employees not to eat food in front of their Muslim co-workers during Ramadan as it might make them feel hungry or Councils desire to rename Christmas as a ‘holiday’ and to remove Christmas trees) is destroying our pagan/Christian roots and the moral basis on which we live.

The religious base of this country is pagan and then Christian and, whether we like Christianity or loathe it, its key commandments form the moral code which holds us together. We know that it is wrong to kill, to steal and to fuck our friends' partners and get jealous when someone has more than us and these rules and a few others have for centuries made us what we are. As we have have become less religious so the laws have been weakened and amended, we no longer lock homosexual men up or burn witches, but generally the Christian moral code still holds sway, or rather it did.

With the demise of Christianity will fall our values, not all at once of course and not immediately, but they will fall. Every assault on Christianity is an assault on our wider freedoms, on women’s freedoms, on sexual freedom, on, ironically, religious freedom and the freedom of speech and into the gap will step another religion. A religion whose moral code allows for no dissent, no sexual freedom, no individual rights and which will enforce its laws totally. It is a religion that would, were it in control, certainly not allow a member of another religion to discuss and comment on its shortfalls and allow complaints against it to be made in law. In fact one of its first acts, should it become the leading religion in the UK, will almost certainly be to abolish Section 5 of the Public Order Act and its ubiquitous religiously-aggravated public order offense. We should abolish it first, reclaim the moral high ground, celebrate our culture and protect the Christians in our midst, for without them the country will move another step closer to the abyss.

Hallelujah