God is half good

Stephen Green of Christian Voice is being thoroughly entertaining again. He’s got half his costs waived in the court case that threatened to bankrupt him – the one he lost against the BBC and producers of Jerry Springer: The Opera.

But it’s not an earthly phenomenon, this deal to settle for half the costs. Not something that’s been brought about by, you know, people. Oh, no. It was the Lord wot done it.

Stuart Hartill of the Clinging to a Rock blog tells me that Green has emailed him thus:

I am pleased to tell you I was able to do a deal with them, in which I settled for half their total costs, and the Lord graciously provided the money. To Him be all the glory. That leaves [producer] Jonathan Thoday, but I owe him less money, and I am praying for a good resolution there as well.

Funny how the Lord graciously provides the money for Stephen Green, but doesn’t quite manage it for the starving and destitute the world over, isn’t it? The gracious Lord doesn’t dip into his heavenly pocket for hospitals and schools, for facilities for the disabled, for the million and one other things that money is desperately needed for.

Just a bit suspicious, don’t you think? A bit of favouritism, perhaps? Maybe even nepotism, since Green surely believes himself to be the Son of God returned to Earth. And, if the Lord felt Green's case was worthy enough, why didn't he graciously provide the entire costs, rather than just half?

Green, you will remember, was the campaign (or a large part of it) against the Welsh poet Patrick Jones, leading to the bookstore chain Waterstone’s reneging on an arrangement for him to do a signing and reading session in their Cardiff shop.

He’s launched a petition against the decision by Peter Black, the Liberal Democrats’ spokesman in the Senedd, to invite Jones to read the “offending” poem:

Now, we have launched a petition against Peter Black’s invitation to the “poet” Patrick Jones to insult the Lord Jesus Christ in the National Assembly of Wales – and call for churches to be closed! The event is due to take place in the Ty Hywel NAW [National Assembly of Wales] building at 12 noon on Thursday 11th December. Lorraine Barrett, another Assembly Member and also a member of the extremist anti-Christian National Secular Society, is co-hosting the event.

In an earlier press release he calls Jones a “militant atheist”. Funny how no atheist can just be an atheist with these people: they have to be a militant atheist. My impression from Jones’s poems and his emails to me is that he’s just pissed off with religion – especially the way it’s dished up by prats such as Stephen Green. His wish to close the churches stems from that, not from some rabid hatred of religion per se.

Anyway, there’s Mr Green's petition to sign. It’s here. What are you waiting for? Better still, though, try this one – it's a counterpetition set up by Barry Duke of the Freethinker.

Thanks, Stuart, for the tip-off.