It looks as if there’s at least a little sanity returning to the U.K. following a judge’s ruling on Friday.
London High Court Judge Julian Knowles ruled in favor of a man who had been reported to police by a transgender woman — so a man — who was offended by his reportedly “transphobic” tweets.
“In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi,” Knowles said. “We have never lived in an Orwellian society.”
Harry Miller was accused of making “brazen transphobic comments” on Twitter by a trans woman, only referred to as Mrs. B.
Miller had an interesting take though. He took the accusation of being “transphobic,” turned it on its ear, and responded by arguing that he wasn’t transphobic, but “gender critical.”
According to Reuters:
In one message Miller, a former police office himself, wrote: “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me”, and in another he said: “You know the worst thing about cancer? It’s transphobic.”[…]
Police categorized Mrs B’s complaint as a ‘non-crime hate incident’ and an officer visited Miller’s workplace. In a later phone call, the officer left him with the impression that he could face criminal prosecution if he continued to tweet.
Miller took legal action against the local police force and on Friday judge Julian Knowles at London’s High Court upheld his claim, ruling the tweets were lawful and that police had disproportionately interfered with his right of freedom of expression.
Miller seemed to welcome the accusations, as he had no problem telling the court his opinion on the topic of the trans community.
“I want to raise awareness by stating that which used to be instinctively obvious – a biological man is a man and a biological woman is a woman,” Miller told the court. “To claim otherwise is extraordinary.”
Even if “Mrs. B” was genuinely offended by Miller’s comments, that doesn’t constitute a crime. Freedom of speech, at least in the U.S., is there to protect unpopular speech. If all speech was flowery and “acceptable,” there would be no need to protect speech. But, freedom of speech — in the general sense of the term — recognizes the fact that people don’t all think the same.
“This is a watershed moment for liberty,” Miller said, according to Reuters.
Here's video of comments Miller made to the YouTube channel Christian Concern following the decision in his favor:
H/T: The Blaze