VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Graham|DATE|1368707636|CONTENT|Talking of Oxford, I&#039;ve just received this from a friend, which I&#039;m sure he won&#039;t mind me passing on:

Today (Wednesday) there were some American “born-again christians” in Bonn Square with a loudspeaker.  When I arrived at 15.00 the square was full of people getting very upset, with more than 20 policemen there, including a ring of six  around the speakers to shield them from the crowd. At 15.30 the police presence was down to about 10.  After 17.30, there were only two young community support officers left, and things got quite rowdy, especially when they started on “Abortion is murder” and some young women closed in and tried repeatedly to snatch the microphone.  

The preachers were up on the war memorial, which some of the congregation protested about,  but one said he was a US veteran so it was OK.  Quite a lot of the congregation climbed up beside and above them as things progressed  (saying they had just as much right to be there, it was their city).
 
People were writing their own posters in imitation of the Christian ones. Among the most active opponents were some girls from a local school, including one girl  who was very small and only 13.  It was heart-warming. She kept holding her hand up with profound question after profound question, and when they ignored her, tough young men started shouting “Look mate, she’s got another question”. She was fantastic.
 
The preachers were so extreme that they united everybody, including Roman Catholics (they said that the Pope doesn’t understand Jesus).  

A young man asked them how it was that God had made him an epileptic, and they said it was to punish him for his sins. This didn’t go down at all. Of course, they were anti-Muslim, so much so that towards the end everybody was shouting “Racist. Racist”.  
The epileptic said it couldn’t be a punishment for his sins, because he was born epileptic. They explained that he was born sinful because he was descended from Adam. A young African Muslim, who had been arguing with them very sensibly until then, didn’t get this, and they had to explain to him about how God had commanded Adam and Eve not to eat an apple, and because they did eat it, we were all sinful and this particular baby had been punished with epilepsy for eating the apple . The Muslim decided there was no point in having any more to do with such people, and walked off in disgust.

Apparently they are planning to be there again today.  Skins thicker than a rhino&#039;s (And brains half the size).
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