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DAILY NEWS
NYDailyNews.com
Gay cop arrests
preacher for saying
homosexuality is a
sin: report
BY Neil Nagraj. from
the Web May 3, 2010
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Sullivan/Getty
"My
freedom was taken away on the hearsay of someone who disliked what I
said," the preacher said. Above, protesters demonstrate
against same-sex marriage in Philadelphia. |
A Baptist street preacher was
reportedly arrested and tossed in jail by a gay cop for calling homosexuality a
sin. Dale McAlpine, a preacher in Cumbria in the U.K., was charged with
causing "harassment, alarm or distress," London's Telegraph reports, for the
harangue.
The 42-year-old denies slamming homosexuality during a sermon he delivered while
perched atop a ladder, the newspaper reports, but admits he told a passerby
during a conversation he believed same-sex relationships to be sinful.
McAlpine also was heard denouncing blasphemy and drunkenness.
A cop approached the woman with whom McAlpine had the conversation, and then
approached the minister, telling him he faced arrest for using hate speech.
He claims he resumed preaching, and was subsequently arrested, the Telegraph
reports. Cops maintained his comments about gays were made loudly enough
to be heard by other passersby in the area.
"I felt deeply shocked and humiliated that I had been arrested in my own town
and treated like a common criminal in front of people I know," McAlpine told the
Telegraph.
"My freedom was taken away on the hearsay of someone who disliked what I said,
and I was charged under a law that doesn't apply."
McAlpine has pleaded not guilty, the Telegraph reports, and was released on bail
provided he agreed to cease preaching.
Cumbrian police did not respond to the Telegraph's requests for comment.
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