A free country?
Melanie Phillips blog
Who said Britain was the home of free speech? The Telegraph reports what happened to Lynette Burrows, an author on children's rights and a family campaigner, after she took part in a discussion on BBC Radio Five Live about the new Civil Partnership Act.
During the programme, she said she did not believe that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt. She added that placing boys with two homosexuals for adoption was as obvious a risk as placing a girl with two heterosexual men who offered themselves as parents. ‘It is a risk,’ she said. ‘You would not give a small girl to two men.’ A member of the public complained to the police and an officer contacted Mrs Burrows the following day to say a ‘homophobic incident’ had been reported against her. ‘I was astounded,’ she said. ‘I told her this was a free country and we are allowed to express opinions on matters of public interest. She told me it was not a crime but that she had to record these incidents. They were leaning on me, letting me know that the police had an interest in my views. I think it is sinister and completely unacceptable.’
Scotland Yard confirmed last night that Fulham police had investigated a complaint over the radio programme. A spokesman said it was policy for community safety units to investigate homophobic, racist and domestic incidents because these were ‘priority crimes’. It is standard practice for all parties to be spoken to, even if the incident is not strictly seen as a crime. ‘It is all about reassuring the community,’ said the spokesman. ‘We can confirm that a member of the public brought to our attention an incident which he believed to be homophobic.All parties have been spoken to by the police. No allegation of crime has been made. A report has been taken but is now closed.
So voicing concern about gay adoption now gets the police to finger your collar. Expressing the ‘wrong’ opinion is no longer considered acceptable by the state, which has decided what views are acceptable and what are not. Is this not the definition of a police state? And are the views of Lynette Burrows not shared by many, if not most, of the population? And how does this sit with all the harrumphing over the Terrorism Bill provision to outlaw material which glorifies terrorism, which is being ferociously opposed on the basis that we must never ever surrender freedom of speech, the principle at the very heart of our democracy?
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