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Jerry Springer the Opera and Freedom of ExpressionDateline: 18th March, 2005“We praise God for the closure of Jerry Springer - The Opera in the West End, but we are now praying it doesn’t open anywhere else. This is about the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our members feel passionately about Jesus because he gave his life that we might live. They will be watching their local theatres carefully.” These were the words of Stephen Green, the director of the organisation Christian Voice after it was revealed that, after threats from the group, eleven regional theatres have pulled out of taking the Springer tour. This is the same organisation that published phone numbers of BBC executives on the Web. It is also homophobic and believes in the supremacy of the male. It comes in the same week that we hear that another Christian organisation, the Christian Institute, has asked for a judicial review of the BBC's broadcast of the West End production, claiming that Christians' human rights were violated because of the broadcast. They say nothing, of course, of the human rights of those who may have wished to see the broadcast - which had, in act, the largest audience of any other similar programme. Although Britain is nominally a Christian country, actual church attendance is small - figures for 1995 showed that it was 6.7% of the population and estimates for 2000 suggest that it had reduced to 6.4%. Even among those who are regular church attenders, there are many who, although they may have found the show offensive personally, do not feel that it is their right to impose their beliefs on others. The opponents of the broadcast of Jerry Springer the Opera point to the fact that 47,000 people protested to the BBC over its showing, but in fact this is less than 0.1% of the population. (Population figures based upon national statistics for 2003.) This is not the tail attempting to wag the dog, but the flea on the end of the tail trying to do so. Regrettably it seems to be a very strong flea. Fleas have the right to be fleas, but they most certainly don't have the right to change every other living being into fleas. So the Christian right wing, fundamentalist and extremist though it is, has the right to believe what it believes and to protest when it is offended. It does not, however, have the right to intimidate the rest of us into living by its beliefs. It will use the law when it suits it (the judicial review) but is quite willing to break the law, by using intimidation and threats, when it doesn't. We have seen all this before. It's called Fascism. Let us leave the last word to Christopher Frayling, chair of ACE, in a letter to the Guardian today:
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