The notion of free speech dates back at least to ancient Greece, where it was known as "parrhesia," meaning "to speak candidly." In Greek literature, the word and the concept date back to the 5th century B.C., and here in the United States today, centuries later, it is enshrined in our First Amendment. Free speech isn't just limited to actual verbal communications, but in most places nowadays, to all forms of communication, one of which you are now reading.
Great Britain, back when it was still great, also recognized the importance of free speech as a pillar of a free society. But in recent years, they've been increasingly clamping down on their subjects' freedom of expression.
In the latest example, in Britain, a 78-year-old grandfather and retired pastor was charged and fined for reading the Bible out loud.
If you want a snapshot of how far Britain has drifted from its liberal inheritance, consider the spectacle of a 78 year-old grandfather and retired pastor being warned by police that he must not preach from the Bible within a public area. His offence was not harassment, obstruction or intimidation. It was reciting and commentating on a verse many learned as children: “For God so loved the world…”
Clive Johnston’s alleged crime was breaching a ‘buffer zone’ around a hospital which houses a sexual health clinic where abortions are performed – despite the fact it was a Sunday afternoon when there were no scheduled abortions, and he made no reference whatsoever to abortion, nor motherhood, nor babies.
The state maintains he risked “influencing” anyone accessing the clinic in relation to abortion or anyone working there – a crime punishable by fine. He was prosecuted, and this week found guilty for doing so.
That is the purpose, and the value, of freedom of speech: To influence people, to persuade, to argue, to express countering views, to make sure all sides of an issue are heard. When a government clamps down on dissent, when a government establishes a "correct" way of thinking or speaking, then the liberty of the citizens, or in the case of Britain, the subjects, is eroded.
There are a couple of issues at hand here.
At this point, it is worth stating plainly: this is no longer about the cultural debate on abortion ethics. It is about whether the state may decide which ideas are permissible in public space and which must be confined to the private sphere. In footage from the initial confrontation with police now circulating on X, the policeman literally tells Johnston his religious views should be expressed only in a “safe” place like a chaplaincy – not out on the street, where anyone passing by might hear.
Johnston’s case is the latest example in a pattern that has been building for years: the slow but unmistakable attempt to narrow the space in which Christians, in particular, are permitted to express their beliefs.
Note that in Britain, most hospitals are public property, which here in the United States would cast a pall of doubt over the constitutionality of the whole "buffer zone/keep your mouth shut" designation for certain areas. If one doesn't have the right to speak freely on public property, then there is no right to speak freely at all. Mr. Johnston, now, should have known about that buffer zone and must have known he was risking a confrontation for entering it, but there's an argument to be made that entering that zone and preaching was a form of political protest, which is, again, a free speech issue.
Read More: UCLA Lets Protesters Shut Down Speaker, Threatens Conservatives Who Call It Out
Mamdani's No Speech Zone: NYPD Transfers Captain for Daring to Say 'Not My Mayor'
And here's the other issue: If this had been a Muslim imam preaching from the Quran about, well, anything, in front of this same hospital, in this same buffer zone, does anyone think he would have been arrested, fined, or even interfered with? Likely not. While we have not seen an imam try to replicate this, if that were the case, and smart money says that it is, then we fall afoul of another principle of a free society: Equal treatment under the law. And while this specific case hasn't been tested, we have seen mass Muslim public prayers in Britain, in which they block free passage of passersby; there have been no legal consequences for that, even when they are interfering with people going about their lawful business.
The issue here isn't abortion. It isn't Christianity. For that matter, it's not Islam. The issue here is whether free speech and equal treatment under the law still exist in the United Kingdom.
Even if we accept the notion of "buffer zones," even on public property, the proper reaction to Mr. Johnston's public speech should have been to gently move him back to the sidewalk, not to charge and fine him for speaking his mind. But we are growing accustomed to seeing Britain's governments, national and local, overreact in such matters.
Why bring this up? Because, remember, as I am continually pointing out, the American left has the habit of looking at events in Europe and wanting to try them here, and cases exactly like this are where American liberals and leftists are trying to stick that camel's nose under the tent.
