Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant'
11th July 2012, 09:32
Mary fucking Whitehouse...I hope that there is a hell and she's in it.
The Gay News and its editor Denis Lemon were found guilty of blasphemous libel in the first case of its kind for more than 50 years.
The case was brought as a private prosecution by the secretary of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, Mary Whitehouse.
She objected to a poem and illustration published in the fortnightly paper last year about a homosexual centurion's love for Christ at the Crucifixion.
After the jury gave their 10-2 guilty verdict at the Old Bailey Mrs Whitehouse said:
"I'm rejoicing because I saw the possibility of Our Lord being vilified. Now it's been shown that it won't be".
The poem, The Love that Dares to Speak its Name, by Professor James Kirkup, 54, was distributed to the jury and reporters. However, the judge, Mr Alan King-Hamilton, ordered that it could not be published.
Prosecuting Counsel John Smyth told the court: "it may be said that this is a love poem - it is not, it is a poem about buggery." The defence argued that far from being "vile" and "perverted" the poem glorified Christ by illustrating that all of mankind could love him.
The next day Denis Lemon was given a nine-month suspended jail sentence and a £500 fine. The Gay News was fined £1,000 but with court costs the paper had to pay £10,000.
The paper and its editor appealed against the decision in spring 1978, but the Law Lords upheld the convictions. A couple of days after the original trial two socialist newspapers published the offending poem as a protest against censorship.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/11/newsid_2499000/2499721.stm)
The Gay News and its editor Denis Lemon were found guilty of blasphemous libel in the first case of its kind for more than 50 years.
The case was brought as a private prosecution by the secretary of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, Mary Whitehouse.
She objected to a poem and illustration published in the fortnightly paper last year about a homosexual centurion's love for Christ at the Crucifixion.
After the jury gave their 10-2 guilty verdict at the Old Bailey Mrs Whitehouse said:
"I'm rejoicing because I saw the possibility of Our Lord being vilified. Now it's been shown that it won't be".
The poem, The Love that Dares to Speak its Name, by Professor James Kirkup, 54, was distributed to the jury and reporters. However, the judge, Mr Alan King-Hamilton, ordered that it could not be published.
Prosecuting Counsel John Smyth told the court: "it may be said that this is a love poem - it is not, it is a poem about buggery." The defence argued that far from being "vile" and "perverted" the poem glorified Christ by illustrating that all of mankind could love him.
The next day Denis Lemon was given a nine-month suspended jail sentence and a £500 fine. The Gay News was fined £1,000 but with court costs the paper had to pay £10,000.
The paper and its editor appealed against the decision in spring 1978, but the Law Lords upheld the convictions. A couple of days after the original trial two socialist newspapers published the offending poem as a protest against censorship.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/11/newsid_2499000/2499721.stm)