A rather good sounding student arts festival began this weekend in St Andrews (BBC News -Students take to festival stage).  Included in about 70 performances held in 12 venues around the town, the On the Rocks event also showcases the talents of the local non-student community.  There’s a variety of performances, from Shakespeare to Peter Pan, and a film festival, complete with competition.  So, what’s the problem?

Well, it turns out that one of the performances is Jerry Springer: The Opera over which a considerable kerfuffle was raised a few years ago, when a production was aired on the BBC.  Perhaps that’s why the BBC News report focusses on this item.  It’s what’s generated another mouthing-off by bonkers christian agitator Stephen Green.  Of course his defeat in his blasphemy case against the BBC’s showing of Jerry Springer: The Opera not only revised UK blasphemy, but reputedly reduced him to the verge of bankruptcy.  Unfortunately his vile Christian Voice organisation is still active, and still upset by the Jerry Springer show, as the BBC report relates:

Christian Voice branded the university a “cess pit” and members will be handing out leaflets ahead of the performances.

National director of Christian Voice, Stephen Green, said: “The university and the students in it have rather lost touch with any notion of civilised behaviour.

“It’s all very well for the principal to bleat on about freedom of speech, but freedom of speech comes with responsibilities.

“It’s all very well for her to say we trust the students, but they don’t trust the students enough to mark their own exam papers so there’s a lot of duplicity and hypocrisy going on at St Andrews.”

I don’t know whether CV agitators will be handing out leaflets at the event, but I do wish the hypocritical twerps would just accept defeat and naff off into the distance. (For some more links about Stephen Green, see Stephen Green, Christian Voice and vaccinations, and also this Wikipedia page, which gives some more information on Stephen Green, Christian Voice, and their objectionable opinions and policies.)

Update:  Barrie’s also covered this story over at The Freethinker (Green resurfaces to protest against JSTO) – according to The Courier (Protests against Jerry Springer musical) there was one protestor on Saturday evening (a St Andrews theology academic), and about 20 CV drones, including Green on Sunday.

Bookmark It

Stephen Green, the batty bloke behind Christian Voice, resurfaced this week (after a glorious period of silence) as one of the complainants over the Corrie-creationism brouhaha.  Coincidentally, I notice that The Lay Scientist, who’s been blogging lately about The Daily Mail and its bizarre campaign against vaccination (oddly this appears to be restricted to it’s UK operation – its Irish output takes the opposite view) has posted an amusing article about the ASA’s comprehensive slapdown of Christian Voice (Christian Voice, the HPV Vaccine and Freedom of Speech).  The final paragraph is:

This of course is the same Stephen Green who sued the BBC for blasphemy, who upon the abolition of blasphemy laws in 2008 threatened that Christians would have to “take matters into their own hands” if people said anything that might offend God or Christ. In other words this odious little creature, a man who believes that husbands should have the right to rape their wives at will believes in freedom of speech only when it applies to him. He is a disgrace, to fellow Christians and to human beings in general.

Some of the commenters follow those links and are pretty appalled by what they find.

Bookmark It

Hot on the heels of his latest slapdown from the ASA, it’s reported by The Scotsman (Jerry Springer sparks holy row at St Andrews) that he and his band of fellow fanatics, Christian Voice, are taking exception to a theatre group at St Andrews University planning to put on a production of Jerry Springer: the Opera.  This, you may recall, was the opera which led to Green’s defeat at the hands of the courts (though apparently he made such a fuss it’s theatrical run is supposed to have been curtailed.  At the time it was reported that the judgement was to lead to his bankruptcy, but that appears not to have happened.

Interestingly, the lad who is behind the staging is a practising Christian, but presumably he reckons that since Christianity has survived for two millennia against sterner opposiion than an opera, the various churches have nothing to fear.  Not so Stephen Green, who’s previous legal action against “Jerry Springer, the Opera” led to removal of blasphemy laws (good result) and his near bankruptcy.  You can read Christian Voice’s press release here.  It’s a typically bonkers statement.  And adds further support to the suggestion that Christian Voice is something of a one man band.

MediaWatchWatch’s take is here: Springer’s back!

Bookmark It