Father Ted Creator Wanted for Questioning By PSNI After ‘Transphobia’ Accusations

Comedy writer Graham Linehan has had his collar felt up yet again by British police, this time in the form of the PSNI requesting an interview on the grounds of the writer’s anti-trans stance.

Not the first occurrence, the announcement was made on the funnyman’s personal substack to which he has retreated to following his deplatforming from Twitter in 2020.

“I was asked by a very polite representative of my local force if I would go to the station to be interviewed by Northern Irish police. I told them no, and that I had been harassed by trans rights activists using the police not just once but twice before and that they could email me with any questions that they might have”

Speaking with The Burkean, Glinner stated that he was told that the request was in relation to ‘“statements which were made online” or something along those lines.’

The third time Glinner has met with the long arm of the law over his views, in 2018 the writer was issued with a harassment warning over his interactions with trans militant Stephen Hayden. His 2019 appearance on Prime Time even merited a picket from trans campaigners.

Witnessing a spectacular fall from grace, Linehan is a self-designated martyr for the cause having stridently taken the TERF position most of the past decade.

Subject to the rest of the United Kingdom’s dystopian hate speech legislation, the Northern security state takes a no nonsense approach to incidents of high-profile transphobia. Perhaps an indicator of the Republic’s impending legislation, hate crime in the North is governed under the Criminal Justice (Northern  Ireland) Order 2004.

Very similar to the probable legal definition on hate speech to be used by Garda here, the working definition of transphobia is given by the PSNI as,

“Hate crime is defined as any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.  Includes people who are transsexual, transgender, transvestite and those who hold the gender recognition certificate under the Gender Recognition Act 2004” 

As Linehan has hinted, in all probability he has stepped on the toes of a local trans activist who has called on the law as a response. While unlikely to result in any serious prosecution (this time anyway) the very fact such a scenario even possible ought make British justice an international laughing stock.

This author and this publication would hardly see eye to eye on matters beyond the trans issue, but by all accounts, the development is yet another ominous move in the suffocating in trans critical voices.

Linehan as a cultural artefact is still living in the 90s in a time when liberalism granted some breathing space to dissenters among its own ranks. While his near constant engagement on the matter is commendable, Linehan had a hand in the cultural miasma that is swallowing him whole. 

Time to stand behind the TERF behind the wire?