Persecution on the march

[I tried to upload this post; the server ate it. I just re-composed it, and the server ate it again before I could even upload it. Suffice it to say I am not a happy camper, which is to say, I'm just this side of flying into a blithering Howard Deanesque rage. This had better not happen again.]

Here is a rather disquieting story:

"An evangelical preacher whose reading of a Bible passage at the July 21 Lansdowne Borough Council meeting was termed 'hate speech' by the council president will stand trial in Media for disrupting a public meeting and a related charge."

What's that, you say? Tell the whole story? Okay...

"[Lansdowne Police Chief Daniel Kortan] testified that Lansdowne resident Michael Marcavage asked council a question concerning comments made by recently appointed Councilman Kevin Lee (D). Lee is the first openly gay [natch] public official in Delaware County. Marcavage then began reading from the Bible, Kortan testified.

"'I went to him and appealed to him,' Kortan testified. 'You had the microphone long enough. It's time to sit down and enjoy the meeting like the rest of the people or leave. He refused. They (council) asked him to go back on target with a question for council instead of just reading,' Kortan testified.

"The council president adjourned the meeting and council members and various members of the audience filed into the hallway area. 'I told him, "now you're leaving." He asked, "are you arresting me?" I said, "not yet, but you're getting close." He said, "I must exercise my right of civil disobedience,"' Kortan testified. He removed Marcavage using 'the fireman's carry,' he testified."

So he was a crank, right? Not so fast.

"Marcavage's attorney, Steven Shields, argued that council had suspended the rules of order prior to opening the meeting up to public comment. Shields asked the judge to dismiss the charges.

"'The council president, who I believe is Mr. (Norman) Council, said that's hate speech. What better way to squelch the messenger or silence the message than to arrest the messenger?' Shields said."

Precisely. As was confirmed in the story's money shot:

"'Council perceived what he was reading as hate speech. It would be homophobic today. They couldn't let him go on. You can't go up to the podium and start reading from the Bible,' Assistant District Attorney Alyssa Kusturiss countered."

Can anybody imagine a Muslim imam reading from the Koran, or an orthodox Jewish rabbi reading from the Torah, being physically dragged away and criminally prosecuted using a statute that even Kortan admits hasn't been invoked in his quarter century as a police officer on the grounds that either's exercise of their First Amendment rights constituted hate speech?

But for Christians, it's becoming almost passe.

Well is it written, "And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." - II Timothy 3:12-13