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Dateline: 24th February, 2005
Charity Turns down Springer Donation A cancer charity has refused a donation from a special performance of Jerry Springer the Opera after it received threats from a fundamentalist miltitant Christian group, Christian Voice. Maggie's Centres, a Scotland-based cancer support group, was offered a donation, which is variously reported as having been between £3,000 and £10,000, from the penultimate night of the show's run (18th February) when all the cast decided to give their pay for the performance to charity. Christian Voice's leader Stephen Green said that they had been in contact with the charity. "We did have a chat with the people at Maggie's," he told The Independent, "but the decision to pull out was theirs alone. All I did was explain that if they carried on they would cause offence to Christians, who are known for being generous, and they would probably do far better to forgo the few thousand pounds they would get out of the performance." However he later admitted on the Radio 4 Today programme that the orginsation would hold a protest outside the charity's office if they accepted the donation. David Soul, who played Jerry Springer in the show, accused Christian Voice of strong-arm tactics and blackmail. "Cancer is not just a Christian problem, " he added. Christian Voice was the organisation which posted the private addresses of BBC executives on the Net when the decision that BBC2 would screen the show was announced. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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