Home › content

"Militant Atheist" found guilty of religious harassment

Thu, 2010-03-04 13:22 — Robyn

"The airport is named after one of my heroes and his view on religion was pretty much the same as mine. I thought it was an insult to his memory to have a prayer room in his airport." That was part of the evidence given in court by the self-styled "militant atheist" campaigner Harry Taylor, 59, to why he left anti-religious materials in the multi-faith Prayer Room of Liverpool's John Lennon Airport (pictured).

...Harry Taylor is now on bail awaiting sentencing on 23 April. Religiously aggravated offences carry a potential seven-year prison term.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Comments

Fri, 2010-03-05 01:18 — ABN

This is a disgraceful verdict

I could not agree more with the following quote from Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society:

"This is a disgraceful verdict, but an inevitable one under this pernicious law. It seems incredible in the 21st Century that you might be sent to prison because someone is 'offended' by your views on their religion . . . Mr Taylor struck me as slightly eccentric and he acted in a provocative way, challenging the necessity for the prayer room. He didn't cause any damage and he didn't harm anything, nor was he threatening or abusive. Yet he might still end up behind bars because some Christian has decided they are offended. In a multicultural society, none of us should have the legal right not to be offended. This law needs to be re-examined urgently."

I hope Americans never become so foolish as to pass such "pernicious laws."

Fri, 2010-03-05 04:00 — Robyn

Taking offense

It's clearly obnoxious what Taylor did; I don't see how he was hoping to "convert" any religious folks by it. But the materials he left in the chapel room, while clearly disrespectful, are nothing really out of the ordinary. That level and type of disrespect is commonplace; it has become part of the mainstream culture. You find it in the movies, in the routines of popular stand-up comics, on the pages of satirical news publications, in the jokes your kids are telling at school, as well as in the cartoons they draw with their friends when they come home from school.

It's fine for Christians (or whoever) to want to shield themselves from such material by holding themselves aloof from the culture, engaging regularly in prayer, homeschooling their children, screening what they watch on TV and in the movies, etc. But they should still accept that such material is part of the culture. To know about it and to have to come face to face with it should imbue their practice with a deeper meaning. Perhaps it should even be considered essential to their practice. Afterall, the story at the center of the Christian faith is about a man who was not just grossly offended but despised, publicly humiliated, tortured, and executed. Gracefully, he endured all of it.

WWJD if he found those cartoons in an airport chapel? I'm not sure but I'm pretty confident he wouldn't condone charging the guy who left them there with a crime. That would make a mockery of his message.