A George Monbiot article of interest

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | I'm pleased the case against this ranting homophobe was dropped

Monbiot complains that legislation brought in under Labor in England is flawed and being misused. He is happy that charges have been dropped against anti-gay campaigner Stephen Green:

Green had been handing out leaflets to the revellers at the Mardi Gras gay and lesbian festival in Cardiff at the beginning of September. By his standards they were pretty mild. They quoted Leviticus and Romans, compared homosexuality to incest and claimed that "by faith in Jesus it is even possible to be healed of homosexual desires ... you do have a choice as to whether you continue in a lifestyle which leads to hell, or whether you decide to put yourself right with God through belief in the Lord Jesus Christ."

He was arrested and charged under the Public Order Act 1986 with using "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby". On Thursday, however, the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop the case.

It is not clear why the CPS let him go, but it is probably because it knew the prosecution would fail. Green's leaflets, though offensive to gays and lesbians, used no threatening or abusive words, and he did nothing but seek to persuade people to take them. So it was dim of the police to have thrown the Public Order Act at him.

Indeed.

As an aside, he mentions that Green has threatened to sue Channel 4 "over its plans to screen Gunther von Hagens' (admittedly pointless and stupid) crucifixion of a corpse." !!

von Hagens is the crazy looking character who makes a living from flaying dead people, (including perhaps dead convicts from China) "plasticising" the bodies and then touring them around the world. He also seems to have a more or less permanent gig on Channel 4 doing televised autopsies. (His first turned up recently on SBS in Australia, to no media attention at all as far as I can see.)

That his "work" and motives no longer attract that much attention says a lot about the modern Western world, and none of it very good.