By Tom Slater writing for spiked
From the article,
Let’s do a little thought experiment. Imagine that, this week, a group of hardline Christian conservatives started protesting outside cinemas up and down the country, demanding that a ‘blasphemous’ film be banned. What do you think the response would be? They would be rightly ridiculed by politicians and commentators from across the political spectrum. They would be told in no uncertain terms that, no, we do not live in a theocracy and, yes, they should kindly piss off. And if the protesters doubled down, if they carried on intimidating cinema workers and patrons, if they started making thinly veiled threats even, the authorities would step in to keep the protests peaceful and stop activists shutting screenings down by force. Because in a liberal, secular society you do not allow religious bigotry and mob rule to override freedom of expression.