Sonia Hornery MP launched an extraordinary attack on a local church this week when the evangelism they’ve been doing most weekends for several years coincided with an LGBTIQAX+ Pride Festival. The state MP for Wallsend, just West of Newcastle, NSW, accused the church of “hate speech” because they were preaching the Gospel to people attending the festival.

Last weekend, Newcastle celebrated diversity at the Newcastle Pride Group Page Festival.

Unfortunately, members of a local church thought it appropriate to put out hate flyers targeting people attending the festival.

These flyers were handed out to people attending the Festival and placed all over cars parked nearby.

I understand everyone has different beliefs, views and ideas but we also don’t have the right to force these on other people.

I will be following this matter up further with a number of authorities.

According to Ps Charlie Haddad, his church’s routine is to “go where the people are,” indiscriminately attending any local crowd in public space. The printed tracts distributed listed no particular sins but described the universal decision available to all between Heaven or Hell.

Ms Hornery did not discuss her concerns with the pastor before publishing her criticism of his congregation’s preaching along with unsubstantiated claims Grace Bible Baptist Church members verbally assaulted people. Unlike the local MP, I easily found the pastor’s phone number and asked him about the disturbing accusations of hate speech and verbal assault. The interview video is below.

I’ve also invited Sonia Hornery via a comment on her post to discuss her views in further depth. Her response: “I have better things to spend my time on.” Yes, Ms Hornery, you do. It’s a pity you didn’t realise that before you published your hate speech about local Christians exercising religious freedom in public.

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