A pastor in the UK has been warned by police not to break the law by offending the LGBT mob threatening to burn down his church and assault his congregation.
Pastor Josh Williamson of Newquay Baptist Church received multiple threats from LGBT advocates after the 34-year-old Australian-born minister became the target of anti-Christian attacks.
These include threats to burn down the building, to perform mass sexual orgies on the grounds, and violently assault anyone distributing church leaflets.
The LGBT mob set their sights on Pastor Williamson after he responded to news that the Cornwall Gay Pride parade had been cancelled. Posting in the comment’s section of a local news outlet’s Facebook page, Pastor Williamson simply posted: “Wonderful news!”
According to Christian Concern, organisers of Cornwall Pride then searched Pastor Williamson’s personal Facebook page, took screenshots of posts, tagged Newquay Baptist Church, and shared the images to social media.
Another user downloaded Pastor Williamson’s family photos and then Photoshopped his head onto gay pornographic images which were then shared online.
“Let’s burn a church,” one user said. “Actually messaged joss saying ‘babe would u be mad if I burnt down a church,'” another replied.
“LETS BURN A CHURCH! LETS BURN A CHURCH!”
“F*** you newquay Baptist church,” another user posted to Facebook. “Me and my gay pals are gonna come have an orgy outside ur door.
“Let’s all mutually agree that if any of us get passed this sh**, we are DECKING the c*nt who handed it to us.”
However, when Pastor Williamson reported the threats to Devon and Cornwall Police, sponsors of Cornwall Pride, the authorities told the pastor it was a ‘complex’ situation and said they didn’t believe the threats would materialise.
Police then warned Pastor Williamson to keep his views in a ‘safe environment’ and to make sure he did not offend anyone in the LGBT community because then he would be breaking the law.
Pastor Williamson told Christian Concern that his family and church community have been very concerned by the level of anti-Christian abuse and threats of violence they’ve received over the past few weeks.
“The police have not formally spoken to me about any hate crime or sought a witness statement to look at the various online comments which have included threats to burn down our church,” Pastor Williamson said.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre said this is not an isolated incident.
“It’s becoming worryingly common in the UK to see threats and calls for violence against Christians for voicing their simple opposition to LGBT Pride.
“Police forces should show Christians they take this seriously by protecting their free speech against mob threats rather than by seeking to keep Christians quiet,” she said.
It’s a dark day indeed when the police start protecting particular ideologies at the expense of what they ought to be protecting and preserving: our freedoms and rights.