Critic of Gay Pride police car gets reported for ‘Muslim mob’ joke
by Archbishop Cranmer:
Inspector Mark Evans of Sussex Police is very proud of his new patrol car. So proud, in fact, that he tweeted about it, which is perfectly fine: it’s a free country. Eastbourne Pride and Hastings Pride are to be proudly policed by the new #pride car which will be #ByYourSide throughout. You must set aside your medieval bigotry and homophobic hate, and accept that if the police wish to spend their hard-pressed budget on making patrol cars fit for Noddy and Big Ears, that is their affair. It’s all about diversity and inclusion; approachability and bridge-building with minority communities. It is, if you will, heeding the exhortation of St Paul to become all things to all men in order that all might be defended equally for the sake of justice. Rainbow-coloured police cars are still empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and limit civil disorder. If you think they look as though they belong in fairyland, your hate will only make Inspector Evans stronger.
This sort of thing really doesn’t help:
But when you put something like this out on Twitter, you’re almost fishing for a reaction. Best not to call it ‘incitement’, for Inspector Mark Evans is a senior police officer with many years experience and he knows incitement when he sees it (though he isn’t averse to a bit of stirring). There’s a summary of superficial reaction over on KentLive, most of it being concerned with the cost (£750) and policing credibility (“someone asking if the twitter account was ‘satire’”). There was some support, too: North Yorkshire Police thought the car was “Wow! Pretty!”, which makes you wonder why police officers don’t agitate to ditch their dreary uniforms and inject a permanent flash of Technicolor into law enforcement: the world of diverse communities and identities manifestly isn’t black and white (except perhaps for ISIS, but this car probably wouldn’t be very effective in policing that community).
The Devon & Cornwall Police LGBT Network took firm action against the hatred, and had a number of Twitter accounts silenced:
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