Life is busy. Despite the fact that I'm a 'media man' by trade, I hadn't fully digested the scale of the outrage over Tyson Fury until yesterday.
I'd heard he'd made some anti-gay comments. I was aware that some people thought this made him ineligible to win 'Sports Personality of the Year' and I guessed there was some kind of religious connection. But it wasn't until the BBC interview yesterday that I actually went back and dug out the comments he had made on TV which had ignited the 'fury.'
It's not hard to see why he has received such criticism. Comparing homosexuality to paedophilia is as inaccurate as it is unoriginal. Saying it's one of three 'big-ticket' sins that will be legalised ahead of the devil's return is something even the most conservative of Biblical scholars would struggle to get on board with. Perhaps most worryingly, as someone who grew up gay and Christian, I know just how much pain his words will have caused. Whatever your view on this issue, it's difficult to think anything other than that Tyson Fury has, this week, made life even more difficult for anyone, but particular any Christian, who is trying to come to terms with an LGB orientation.
Nonetheless I don't write this article to add my voice to those calling on him to be disqualified from the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. I actually don't think he should be banned. That's for the following reasons:
· Society must only deny freedom of speech in the most extreme of situations – The BBC is our public broadcaster. It is not appropriate for them to make a value judgement on this religious view point. Fury's theology couldn't be more different to my own – in fact I would go as far as to say that he has missed the entire point of the Gospel, including the spirit of the beautiful verses he quoted in his interview. But it is his legitimate view point. He did not encourage any violence to people who practise homosexuality nor has he launched any kind of campaign. He stated his own view, one that I find pretty disturbing – but a free society takes away people's right to do this at its peril.
· Banning him essentially achieves nothing – You don't deal with extreme views by pretending they don't exist. This isn't something that can be swept under the carpet. The BBC could ban him – but that would do nothing to address the far more worrying issue that far too many people agree with him. It's the human heart that needs to change and a top-down sanction is never going to achieve it.
· It would back up Christians who claim to be persecuted – It has always been a great source of distress to me that some Christian groups in the UK claim to be persecuted. Do they know what persecution is? If Fury is banned because of his views it will add fuel to the fire to those claims and give way to self-indulgent sorrow in certain wings of the Church.
· It's time for LGBT people (Christian or not) to act like victors not victims. – Please don't get me wrong. There is still work to be done to strive toward equality in society and (especially) in the Church. But history is now irreversibly on the side of inclusion and equality on this issue in the UK and other countries around the world. Of course Fury's comments should be condemned. But there is no need to create a reaction that looks like fear. We have already won. We can afford to be secure and gracious.
There's one more point. Even though he shouldn't be banned, Christians should not vote for Fury as Sports Personality of the Year. I am aware that many readers will not share my views around same-sex relationships – but I doubt that many would really want it described and positioned as one of the three deadliest sins in the world. Instead I believe most Christians would rather talk about issues of injustice, love and compassion.
It is not for the state to decide which religious views are worthy of value in a personality contest; but it is for Christians to make clear that such beliefs don't represent the mainstream of Christianity. To vote for him would be to suggest that we as Christians, think his personality should be modelled by others. To vote for him would suggest that we think people should express their views in the hurtful way he has expressed them. In other words, to vote for Fury would be to send the completely the wrong message – a message that many could never forgive us for.
