A UK group calling itself Fathers 4 Justice disrupted a service of the Church of England’s General Synod in order to protest alleged inaction by the church to do more to protect the rights of divorced fathers to see their children.
According to the BBC, the protestors didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome,
Fathers 4 Justice leader Matt O’Connor was earlier rugby tackled and dragged out of the service by church members.
As he picked himself up he shouted: “Remember, half a million children are deprived of contact with their fathers and the church does nothing. Shame on you.”
Twelve protesters were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and assault.
This is the same group that in May threw condoms filled with purple flower at Tony Blair while he was speaking in the House of Commons (so much for new anti-terrorist security measures in the UK!)
Maybe this sort of stuff plays differently in Great Britain — where animal rights activists and other extremists are allowed to commit gross acts of harassment and violence with little fear of significant punishment — but these sort of extremist tactics suggest that there may be good reasons these folks don’t see their children very often. They certainly do themselves and their cause no favors with such assaults.
Sources:
Fathers’ cathedral protest ends. The BBC, July 12, 2004.
Blair hit during Commons protest. The BBC, May 19, 2004.
The UK Fathers Rights Group Disrupts Church of England Service by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.