Free Speech?

 Seeing the current campaign  against the author  JK Rowling, reminded me of a similar campaign by a different group of narrow minded individuals not that long ago in C20.

Quite why  some individuals cannot accept the right of different people to express their feelings and opinions in  spoken words, pictures or books is difficult to fathom. A lack of education in school and/or at home may be part of the answer, though state controls of people's lives is more appalling in some areas of the world than others.

In France only a day or so back, two were seriously injured outside of the former offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine whose article in 2015 led to a couple of dozen being killed by some people suggesting that they the killers, were following the Muslim faith..

Two novels come to mind when considering the dreadful behaviour of some people to others and the  huge efforts made even to the extent of killing people, to impose their narrow views upon those with broader  if not holier, lives; the book  covers are depicted below:

Satanic Verses I read with interest. Salman Rushdie had to go into hiding and be protected by the police for years as a result of his interesting work. What I believe  is called a fatwah was issued against him suggesting as I recall that he could be killed. Of course the Satanic Verses itself does not affect the actual religion but there seemed to me at the time to be a paucity  of those of the Muslim faith speaking out in his favour to decry the fatwah.

Almost as bad are  some expressed  alleged  opinions on Amazon and Waterstones regarding JK Rowling's new book written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith, supposedly by individuals complaining about Ms Rowling's alleged  attitude towards trans sexuals. Whatever her attitude is she is entitled to hold a view. In any event both sets of narrowminded  people caused me to buy the novels being complained about. 

The Catholic Coalition for Marriage which I support, on the other hand published a more positive piece about the right to have such views, saying:

Earlier this year I wrote to you about Harry Coulter. Harry and his Marriage Matters organisation were unceremoniously booted out of a Belfast hotel last October when a member of the public complained about their event. The keynote speaker, C4M’s Director of Supporter Strategy Tony Rucinski, was cut off mid-flow by members of staff. The 55 attendees were sent home. No refund was offered.

I’m pleased to say that the hotel has now apologised unconditionally, refunded Harry's booking fee and paid his legal costs.

Expressing “sincere regret” the hotel admitted that its actions prevented Harry and his guests “from fully expressing [their] beliefs about the law of marriage in Northern Ireland”.

It added: “We recognise that the ability to respectfully debate issues on which we hold strong views is fundamental to freedom of speech for all of us. We also recognise that the particular way in which this was dealt with was embarrassing for you and inconvenient for your guests.”

The hotel committed to “refresh the training of all staff on their responsibilities relating to equality, diversity and human rights”.

I have yet to read "Troubled Blood" but have very much enjoyed watching "The Cormoran Strikes" series on BBC 1 TV. Hopefully that organisation which itself is becoming too woke for my taste, will not decline to broadcast  "Troubled Blood" because of the hate campaign being exercised by some, against JK Rowling alias Robert Galbraith.