For those interested, on YouTube there are the main speeches from the Defend Freedom of Religion, Conscience and Thought Rally, organised by the Muslim Brotherhood’s BMI front group along with Liberty.
From Tories to Respect, there is a very broad range of political affiliations but remarkably uniform content to the speeches – attacks on our ‘Islamophobic ‘government, ‘Islamophobic’ media and – interestingly – ‘Islamophobic’ feminists and ‘Islamophobic’ secularists came in for particular criticism. “Secularist sectarians” was the phrase used by Christine Odone in a particular hysterical speech in which she labelled secularists “the new bigots” who apparently “want to tell us what to eat”….. don’t ask me.
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, seemed to puzzle the audience with her remarks in favour of freedom of speech but was more appreciated when she said old-fashioned racism was being “dressed up as feminism and secularism”.
I’ll leave you to browse the videos and judge and comment on the speeches yourselves but I will just make one observation. If secularists were as touchy as some of the religious about criticism of our beliefs then we would describe the kind of stuff that Odone came out with as hate-speech and the event as a whole as a Secularphobic rally.
(Hat Tip: Luke in comments)