Waterstone's Gagging Order

When I think of fundamentalist religion (which isn't that often, I must admit) I think of the American christian right or middle eastern muslims, I don't think of the valleys of south Wales. News is filtering round the net that Waterstones bookshop in Cardiff cancelled a book signing by poet and playwrite Patrick Jones due to threats from christian voice, the same organisation that took the BBC to court for daring to screen 'Jerry Springer the Opera' and lost.

This debacle has been picked up and reported by the BBC, The Guardian and even commented on in the Welsh Assembly which has now invited Patrick Jones to do a reading at the Assembly in December. The coincidence of Patrick Jones being gay and the christian voice people turning to disrupt pride events in London and Brighton is interesting. Out of the thousands of books challenging religion why pick on a slim volume of poetry?

The argument is really about freedom of speech. christian voice is free to follow it's peculiar brand of Christianity but won't allow others to follow or debate other views. And how dares one of the country's largest book stores to cave in to whatever threats made against it? Why didn't it report these to the police, particularly in Cardiff when Patrick Jones was included in the Welsh National Library's 100 Welsh Heroes along with Aneurin Bevan, David Lloyd George, Richard Burton, Dylan Thomas and Bertrand Russell.

Waterstone's says it isn't censoring Patrick Jones since his book is still available in their stores which is plainly a silly argument. We should not allow gagging orders like this to go unchallenged and I'm pleased it's being commented on so widely, even with its own Facebook group.

The book of poety in question is 'Darkness Is Where The Stars Are' and is published by Cinnamon Press. Thanks to this ridiculous situation with Waterstone's, the book has received far more publicity than it would otherwise have had. I quite like the strap-line on the Cinnamon page - 'Buy a book - annoy a bigot'. I think I will. But not from Waterstone's - it's lost any claim on my patronage with this sad debacle. Waterstone's is, unfortunately, part of the HMV Group so I'll need to think about this - it would be a shame if one of the last record chain stores suffered economically at the moment from the stupid thinking of one of it's constituents, particularly when record shops are closing all over the place.

Go on people, buy the book - annoy a bigot and support freedom of speech.