WHEN HATE SPEECH IS LEGAL

Anti-Christian hate speech has reached an all-time audacious low in Australia. Bill Muehlenberg, on his culture watch blog, has alerted us to a blasphemous performance on the programme of the Adelaide Fringe Festival which starts later this month.

In “Come Heckle Christ” Joshua J Ladgrove poses as Jesus so that people can abuse and insult him, or throw stuff at him. The promo says the performance is for “Anyone who enjoys yelling at Jesus whilst watching a dramatic re-enactment of everyone's favourite fairy-tale: The Crucifixion of Jesus The Christ.”

The same “show”, which is no more nor less than hate speech in the guise of comedy, is also booked for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/come-heckle-christ/

Bill, quite rightly, asks why these people are targeting Christ, not Mohammed or Buddha. “They are gutless cowards once again picking on a soft target. They would never dare to do something like this to Muslims or other easily offended groups. They are just a despicable bunch of Christophobes who think they are being oh so clever.”

This is a game for these people. Let’s see just how much we can get away with. Let’s see how many Christians we can upset.

Bill urges Christians to contact the festival sponsors, chief of whom is BankSA, also the festival organisers and the politicians who allow public money to be spent on such rubbish. See these details on http://www.billmuehlenberg.com . Click on the article ‘More Ugly Anti-Christian Bigotry’ and scroll down.

The National Civic Council has set up a petition, which I believe every decent Australian should sign. You don't have to be a Christian to recognise that this sort of stuff is unacceptable. http://againstthetide.org.au/the-petition-against-the-blasphemous-fringe-show-come-heckle-christ

Personally, I think the promo for this show already crosses enough lines to warrant legal action in that it specifically and blatantly incites hate speech.