The island of Malta was once the bastion of Christendom, the spot in the Mediterranean where the Knights Hospitaller faced down the Ottoman Turks and, in a grueling siege, stopped the advance of the Ottomans across the Mediterranean and Europe. It was where the lions of God roared for their faith.
Now it’s where a Christian charity worker faces jail time for speaking out about the LGBT lifestyle in a critical manner. That charity worker is Matthew Grech, a 33-year-old man. He now faces both potential fines and jail time for explaining to a local news outlet last year that he left homosexuality behind because he realized it was wrong.
In saying that, just that he found something wrong and so changed his lifestyle to avoid living in sin, Grech may have run afoul of his country’s ban on “conversion practices”. Fox News Digital, reporting on Grech’s shocking case, noted that:
“I was invited by this new emerging platform in Malta called PMnews to share my story and to discuss sexuality in general,” Grech told Fox News Digital, noting that he was “surprised” when police later called him early on a Sunday morning and ultimately served him with a prosecution order summoning him to court on Feb. 3.
Legal counsel for Grech maintains that his case is the first of its kind and threatens to set in motion a legal “domino effect” that could endanger freedom of speech and religious liberty throughout the Western world.
Grech, describing why the media wanted to hear his side of the story, said “They knew my stance around homosexuality and sexuality in general, so they wanted to hear a little bit more about it because many shun the other side of the story. But these guys wanted to explore it because they’re for freedom of speech, and they don’t like it when viewpoints are shut down simply because they are unpopular.”
And for just doing that, for sharing his side of the story so that others would know that some people change their minds about their lifestyles, the gay activists were able to go on the warpath against Grech, with Fox News Digital reporting that:
Grech said that after LGBT activists with ties to the Maltese government and the Malta Gay Rights Movement (MGRM) reported him to police for the interview, he now faces up to €5,000 in fines or up to five months in prison if convicted of violating Article 3 of Malta’s Affirmation of Sexual Orientation, Gender and Gender Expression Act, which makes it “unlawful for any person” to “advertise conversion practices.” The journalists who interviewed him also have upcoming court dates and face potential criminal sanctions for their part in conducting the interview.
Grech, describing the situation and the impulses behind it quite well, said “They want to ban Christian counseling in churches simply because it does not conform to their religion. They claim not to be religious, but I can tell you that they are just as religious as everybody else.”
Indeed. The religion of wokeness not only demands all must follow it, but is quite harsh to apostates like Grech.
Featured image credit: Matthew Grech Instagram
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