Manic Street Preachers

Cumbrian Police know a thing or two about democracy, free speech and liberty. Yes, a thing or two! That's about the sum total of their knowledge. A 42-year-old Baptist, who has preached Christianity in Workington, Cumbria for years, has been charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships. The preacher, Dale McAlpine, said he did not mention homosexuality while delivering a sermon from the top of a stepladder, but admitted telling a passing shopper that he believed it went against the word of God.

The police took him to the police station in the back of a marked van and locked him in a cell for seven hours on April 20. Mr.McAlpine said the incident was among the worst experiences of his life. “I felt deeply shocked and humiliated that I had been arrested in my own town and treated like a common criminal in front of people I know," he said. Needless to say he got the full DNA, fingerprint and record-keeping treatment.

The police have no business rounding people up like this. Street preaching is not against the law. John Wesley was a prominent preacher. There have been many down the centuries. In fact, I wonder if it passed the minds of the Cumbrian Police to consider the greatest street preacher of them all. The New Testament is basically all about street preaching, or if not in the streets, on the hillsides, by the sea, and in the fields!

No doubt this will come to court. It will cause a rumpus. And the whole sorry saga carries on.