Because our politics is so out of control, I spend a lot of time beating on politicians, particularly progressives. There’s never enough time to examine all of the lies, hypocrisy and general foolishness of the Left. Every time I turn around there’s another story that illustrates their complete disconnect with reality.
But there’s also stories from the world of faith, and I don’t spend enough time examining what they reveal about us. Here is this story from back in December, when a British woman was arrested for praying outside of an abortion clinic.
Mind you, she wasn’t praying out loud, or pacing, or leading others in a prayer. She wasn’t chanting, holding signs, or making the sign of the cross.
She was standing, by herself, in silence.
A pro-life woman was arrested earlier this month for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, U.K. on the grounds that she had breached a speech buffer zone established by the local city council.
Police told Isabel Vaughan-Spruce that she would be taken into custody for violating a Public Space Protection Order. Video footage of the arrest was captured by AllThingsProLife and circulated by Alliance Defending Freedom, which is hosting a fundraiser for Vaughan-Spruce’s legal defense.
When officers asked whether she was part of a protest, she replied “no.” They then asked if she was praying, to which she said she could be doing so “in my head.” Police then searched her, and patted down her hair, before handcuffing her and escorting her to the station.
This is totalitarian-level harassment. You can watch her arrest here:
Vaughan-Spruce issued a statement through Alliance Defending Freedom UK.
“It’s abhorrently wrong that I was searched, arrested, interrogated by police and charged simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind. Censorship zones purport to ban harassment, which is already illegal. Nobody should ever be subject to harassment. But what I did was the furthest thing from harmful – I was exercising my freedom of thought, my freedom of religion, inside the privacy of my own mind. Nobody should be criminalised for thinking and for praying, in a public space in the UK,” said Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, following her arrest for silent prayer.
This is literally arresting someone for a thought-crime. Note that the only indication the police had that she was praying was that “she could be doing so ‘in my head.'” Nothing was heard. Yet she was arrested for praying silently.
I know that we don’t see this in the United States. Not yet. But who would’ve thought that such oppression would be tolerated in the UK?