Who are the 'extremists'?

This party conference season our political class looks very unconvincing.
 
The attack and erosion of the Christian framework in the life of our nation in recent years has created value disintegration.
 
Since Blair's era, successive governments have tried to fill the void created with more and more legislation. As a lawyer I see the devastating impact of this and the unintended consequences.
 
In order to outlaw 'extremism' you have to be able to define the moral framework by which you live; our modern day politicians are unable to do this. They are the products of a relativist, secular, individualistic regime that has forgotten the Christian roots that once undergirded our nation.

It is impossible to have any set of values in a vacuum.
 
Theresa May proposes banning orders and extremist disruption orders for activities that clear a very low legal threshold. In the world of Boris, Theresa and David we have to ask what would constitute an 'extremist' group? Is it the nurses who want to be free to offer prayer or wear a cross at work? (This government submitted legal argument against such nurses at the Strasbourg Court in 2012). Or is it Counsellors such as Mike Davidson who believes that you can reduce unwanted same-sex attraction? Boris lied and covered his back in order to shut down Mike's viewpoint on the London transport system.
 
Theresa May, like all politicos since 2001, wants to stop the Islamic hard line agenda but fails to understand it.
 
She lists activities that would justify being labelled an extremist: “spreading, inciting, promoting or justifying hatred on the grounds of disability, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and/or transgender identity, proposing to overthrow democracy, members of the public, or a section of it, will be harmed”.
 
This is already with us but it isn't Muslims who are labelled extremist, being prosecuted or disciplined at work. Ways are usually found to accommodate them.  It is the Christians.

The issue for us is that this legislation, unchecked, will see Christian organisations labelled as extremist.

Christian Concern has already been banned from the Government-run QEII Conference Centre for seeking to hold a Colloquium entitled 'One Man. One Woman. Making the case for marriage for the good of society'. Apparently our organisation was 'inappropriate' for a government venue; apparently we breached the Government's equality and diversity codes, even before same-sex marriages was passed into law!
 
We have been told by Government lawyers subsequently (in an attempt to bolster its case) that Christian Concern represents a threat to public order and that we cause harassment, alarm and distress. When required, post Theresa’s Bill, this will easily be re-defined as ‘inciting hatred’.
 
Pro life groups and street preachers are now regularly arrested because the police say their message causes harassment, alarm and distress. Just this week a sister organisation was denied public liability insurance because its activities were considered too controversial!
 
Theresa May will deny that her proposals are designed to silence people like us.  But they do. They already have. She says that "the strategy will aim to undermine and eliminate extremism in all its forms: not just Islamic extremism but neo-Nazism and other forms of extremism too". 
 
The Christian illiteracy of our political class with its wholesale adoption of the secular, liberal  agenda fails properly to understand or critique Islam and lives in fear of offending it. 
 
The result? Christians who believe in natural marriage and the humanity of the pre-born child and Jesus Christ as Son of the One, True, God  are the easy targets; the 'extremists'. 

Christians who believe in the moral imperative of the Bible as good for all, beware. Pray for our leaders and lobby them.

By Andrea Williams