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Convicted for the Crime of Silent Prayer

Convicted for the Crime of Silent Prayer

Last updated on: October 23, 2024 at 6:00 am by Gene Veith

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Convicted for the Crime of Silent Prayer 2024-10-19T16:10:08-04:00 Gene Veith

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Yesterday we blogged about in terrorem prosecutions. Today I want to discuss a similar case that resulted in a conviction.

We’ve blogged about people getting arrested in the UK for praying silently in front of abortion clinics, but the case was dismissed against one woman, with the judge instructing the police to stop doing that. But different jurisdictions have different approaches to enforcing the local “buffer” laws that forbid protests in the vicinity of abortion clinics, specifically including prayer.

After two years of legal proceedings–we blogged about the case back in February of 2023–an Afghanistan war veteran, Adam Smith-Connor, was found guilty of the crime of praying silently outside an abortion clinic in Bournemouth, England.

Paul Coleman discusses the case in his article for the European Conservative entitled Be Careful What You Think: In Britain, It Might Be a Crime and comes to some interesting conclusions. Criminalizing silent prayer, he points out, is not only an assault on religious liberty, it represents the government’s attempt to police and to punish what we think in the privacy of our own minds.

Coleman recounts the conversation in November, 2022, between the arresting officer and Smith-Connor, which was captured on film:

Police: “We just wanted to come over and say hello, but also just to inquire as to your activities for today.”

Adam: “Well, I’m praying.”

Police: “In terms of that, can I ask what is the nature of your prayer today?”

According to the report I used when I blogged about it, Adam answered that he was “praying for [his] son, who is deceased.” Thirty years earlier, he had paid for an abortion for his girlfriend, thus killing his own son. Coleman said that in his military training as a medic Adam participated in 30 abortions. Later in his life, he became a Christian. Deeply remorseful for what he had done, he began the practice of praying where abortions are committed.

The outcome of the trial hinged upon his posture. Though he was facing away from the clinic, the judge believed that someone might recognize that he was praying. Comments Coleman,

In the ruling, the judge laid significant emphasis on the fact that Adam said his head may have been “slightly bowed” and his hands were “clasped”. As it happens, Adam, an ex-serviceman, almost always stands with an “at ease” posture with hands clasped across his middle. Yet this stance was enough for the judge to determine that members of the public would have known that he was praying – and that would amount to breaching a “buffer zone” around the abortion facility, which prohibits “expressions of approval or disapproval of abortion”, including through prayer. How anybody would have known Adam was praying about abortion specifically is a mystery. In fact, nobody knew at all—it was the abortion facility staff, rather than a member of the public—who notified the police about Adam’s presence.

Nevertheless, the judge found this enough to pronounce him guilty. The maximum penalty according to the statute was

1,000 pounds ($1,300 US). The prosecutors wanted to punish him additionally by piling on 93,000 pounds ($121,341 US) in court costs. The mercy of the court lowed that to 9,000 pounds ($11,742 US). Since Adam doesn’t have that kind of money, the court is allowing him to pay it off 250 pounds ($326 US) per month.

Coleman points out that the city of Bournemouth is currently facing severe financial problems, being forced to cut services by 10% and begging the government for a bailout. And yet it took the rare step of spending 110,000 pounds ($143,242 US) for a special King’s Counsel to come in from the outside to run the prosecution for a violation with a 1,000 pound fine.

But here is the comment from Coleman that I found most revealing:

We know legal restrictions on Christian beliefs exist in other countries around the world in order to protect the dominant religion, for example, through blasphemy, apostasy, and anti-conversion laws. But in recent years the West has adopted its own secular versions of these laws, protecting the dominant secular ideologies of our day.

Exactly! The secular ideologies constitute not only a religion but a religious fundamentalism, a state religion with the authoritative trappings of a theocracy without god.

Abortion has become not just a value but an ultimate value, trumping all others (freedom of religion, of speech, of thought). It isn’t enough that abortion be allowed. It must also be approved. Contrary views are not allowed. They must not be expressed. They must not even be thought.

Other ultimate values include the approval of homosexuality and the belief in transgenderism. Dissenters are not only wrong. They are evil. They must be punished.

Christians, who admittedly in their history have sometimes behaved in a similar way, must now be the ones who stand for tolerance, free thought, and civil liberties.

UPDATE: In 2023, officials said they would not be prosecuting Adam Smith-Connor, but they apparently changed their minds. For more on his conviction on October 16, see this from the Catholic News Agency.

Photo: Adam Connor-Smith outside the courtroom via Alliance Defending Freedom. “Images for free use in print or online in relation to this story only.”

abortion clinic buffer zones

freedom of thought

in terrorem legal proceedings

outlawing prayer

religious liberty

secularism as religion

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