Religious Censorship?
Religious pressure group Christian Voice, who have previously made headlines for distributing anti-gay leaflets at Cardiff's Mardi Gras and staging protests outside the BBC in response to the airing of Jerry Springer: The Opera, have again set their sights on Cardiff for their latest siege of religiously motivated attacks. And this time, all they needed to do was pick up the phone.
Their latest target is Darkness Is Where The Stars Are, the ninth published work by Welsh poet and playwright Patrick Jones (pictured). The collection of poems, spanning a range of topics from religious practices to male domestic abuse, was to be launched at the Cardiff Hayes branch of Waterstone's on Wednesday, with Jones appearing for an in-store signing. However, after a series of threatening phone calls were made to the bookstore, the event was cancelled and Jones forced to sign copies out on the street.
"It was like living in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four," Jones described. "Apparently Waterstone's had been inundated with complaints from 'concerned Christians'. Although they weren't just complaints; they were bullying tactics: saying they were going to disrupt the reading if it went ahead."
The nature of the calls ranged from complaints about the book being stocked (certain poems were deemed "obscene and blasphemous" by Christian Voice leader Stephen Green) to threats that, if the launch went ahead and copies allowed to be sold, the store would be subject to a stern religious protest. Christian Voice have made no attempt to deny their involvement: “We might have leafleted those going in, or stuck some leaflets in books and engaged people in conversation. We may have stood up at an appropriate point to explain how harassed we were that this was going on,” said Stephen Green. "The Lord had not even showed me what we should do at Waterstone's; only that it should be Christlike ... Just the knowledge that we were on our way has put the fear of God into the opposition."
The threat of protest has proved effective for Christian Voice in the past: in 2005, a cancer charity — Maggie's Centres — declined a four-figure donation from a performance of Jerry Springer: The Opera after the group threatened to picket their care centres if they accepted the 'tainted' money.
Far from thanking the store for bowing to their pressure, Green publicly announced his opinion that "the fact that [the book] is on sale at Waterstone's is a disgrace. We're coming up to Christmas, where we're going to be celebrating the birth of the saviour of the world and it's absolutely obscene that Waterstone's want to make a penny piece out of something that is actually rubbishing Christmas and rubbishing the whole idea of God."
Waterstone's originally cited "unforeseen circumstances" and a "duty to their customers" as the reason for the last-minute cancellation, saying they wished to "avoid potential disruption to [their] store." However a statement released this weekend accused Jones of "deliberately [taking] provocative action to create a furore around the publication of his book", referring to the fact he had emailed several of his poems to various organisations a fortnight before, in the hope of sparking debate about the issues they covered. These organisations included Christian and Muslim organisations, as well as far-right and neo-Nazi groups. As far as we are aware, no members of the other groups complained to Waterstone's.
"This sets a precedent," explains Jones. "I'm really surprised by this, because I'm not a famous writer. If my book can receive this much attention... I mean, what next? Who next? If someone writes an anti-war poem, should they be afraid the army are going to shut them down?"
In rebuttal to the actions of Christian Voice, publisher Cinnamon Press have announced a YouTube poetry competition dubbed 'swifty and satirical poems about religion': encouraging people to write more poems to annoy the likes of Stephen Green. They are offering signed copies of Darkness Is Where The Stars Are to successful entrants.
Who are Christian Voice?
Christian Voice are a UK pressure group led by fundamentalist campaigner Stephen Green. They protest against those they perceive as 'enemies of God' and strive, through prayer and public campaigning, for 'national repentance'. They believe Britain should be governed by a theocracy, meaning God (or those who speak on His behalf) is recognised as the supreme ruler, and that British law be based on the laws of the Bible. As well as the reintroduction of the death penalty, this system would make abortion and homosexuality illegal, and would overturn the law on marital rape.
Stephen Green was arrested in 2006 at Cardiff's Mardi Gras parade in Bute Park, and charged with using threatening words and behaviour. The charges were later dropped. More recently, he organised a 'peaceful protest' at the offices of the South Wales Echo after they published an article by columnist Dan O'Neill entitled "If God considers gays an abomination, why did he create them?"
While a slight absence of backbone on Waterstone's part meant Mr Green did not need to grace Cardiff with his presence this week, we certainly haven't seen the last of him. He is outraged at the fact that Peter Black, culture spokesman for the Welsh Liberal Democrats, has invited Patrick Jones to "insult Jesus Christ in the National Assembly" (quote obtained from www.christianvoice.org.uk). The event will take place in Committee Room 24 of the Assembly Building at midday on Thursday 11th December. Black has extended an invitation to Christians to attend, and Green will no doubt be among them.