Preach Bible, Get Arrested

ICC Note

“We know that what’s happening in Europe and what’s happening in Canada offers us a window into the future of what will happen here in the United States ,”

By Michael Carl

05/11/2010 UK (WND)-A Christian street preacher has been arrested in Britain , accusing of telling a woman that homosexuality is a sin, and alarms are being raised that such actions soon are coming to the United States .

The case in Britain involves 42-year-old Baptist Dale McAlpine, who was preaching in the Workington section of Cumbria , England , recently when he was arrested and charged with using abusive language under the 1986 Public Order Act, which originally was written to deal with abusive soccer fans.

Published reports explain McAlpine told a woman before his sermon that homosexuality is a sin. Then after the sermon, a police community support officer confronted McAlpine about the conversation. The officer notified other officers, who then handcuffed McAlpine and took him to jail for questioning.

Liberty Counsel Cultural Affairs Analyst Matt Barber raised the warning that such cases will be seen more and more in America , too.

“We know that what’s happening in Europe and what’s happening in Canada offers us a window into the future of what will happen here in the United States ,” he said. “The hate crimes laws and employment sexual orientation laws such as ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act here in the United States , have been the precursor to the more oppressive hate speech laws,” Barber explained.

New Zealand-born evangelist Ray Comfort, who runs the Living Waters ministry in California , said it’s tragic that a free country like Britain has taken such a dangerous turn.

“I find it hard to believe that modern England – with its rich Christian heritage (John Wesley, Whitefield, Spurgeon, etc.) would go to the extreme of arresting a man for his beliefs,” Comfort said.

“I think that this is a case of two police officers being offended at the gospel, and that was the motive for the arrest,” Comfort said.

Barber added that the goal of the radical homosexual lobby is to silence Christians.

“Their goal is to silence any dissent and to silence under any penalty of law the Biblical recognition and expression of a traditional Judeo-Christian world view relative to sexual behavior and sexual morality,” Barber said.