Fact Check: Did UK police order Christian woman to stop singing the gospel?

Eliyahu Tulshinski

January 30, 2024

Religious discrimination?

A police officer was recorded telling a young woman that she was prohibited from singing Christian songs on a London sidewalk without a permit from the Church. The woman, Harmonie London, was also playing a keyboard at the time. Is Christian music suddenly prohibited in England's public sphere? Here are some interesting facts about the encounter:

The officer is actually an unpaid volunteer.
In most areas of the U.K., as in the rest of the Western World, street performers do not need special authorization for their “busking” as long as the “artists obey certain rules such as not making too much noise," according to Metro.
None of the rules governing London's street artists distinguish between religious and non-religious content, as also noted by Metro.
The officer was correct, though, in stating that the woman needed to be “authorized” to sing where she was, London's high-traffic Oxford Street.
The officer incorrectly stated the authorization needed to come from the church and that she could not sing off church grounds otherwise - all artists performing there require a special license from the municipality.
The officer did not enforce her request that Harmonie stop performing. She did not issue a fine and did not prevent her from continuing, but rather walked off, though not before sticking out her tongue in reaction to being filmed.

Verdict

In short, Harmonie got away with performing in downtown London without a license; she was not fined and was allowed to continue. In contrast, the 39 licensed buskers on London's Tube had to apply and audition for the right to perform in pitches, “clearly defined by a semi-circular floor graphic and a backdrop advert on the wall.”

Nonetheless, some social media posts implied that it was her religious content, and her choice of religion, that led to the altercation.

Verdict: Misleading. There is no indication that Harmonie was singled out for singing a song with religious content and there is no indication that she was licensed to sing at all in downtown London. The volunteer officer, for her part, should have clarified that Oxford Street requires a special license for performance artists and should have asked her to show her license (if she had one). Of course, it was also unprofessional to stick her tongue out.

Here's Harmonie freely singing “God is with me” in what may be the same location:

Actual religious discrimination

While this misleading story alleging religious discrimination against Harmonie for singing religious songs in the public sphere has garnered much attention, real religious discrimination taking place elsewhere in the U.K. hasn't been given scrutiny by the mainstream media, either. An example of such is discrimination against religious thought and silent prayer outside abortion clinics, which has been punished with arrests.

The U.K. is actually tightening its rules for pro-life activists, with a new set to take place this spring which will criminalize being, “within a safe access zone [on public sidewalks near an abortion clinic] to do an act [which] has the effect of influencing any person’s decision to access . . . abortion services . . .”

America too

The Washington Post reported that the federal government has turned misdemeanor trespass cases outside abortion clinics into 11-year felonies:

In August 2020, a group of antiabortion protesters sat in front of the doors to an abortion clinic in Sterling Heights, Mich., singing Christian hymns and refusing police orders to move.

They were arrested for trespassing, a misdemeanor.

Then, in February, the Justice Department announced a federal indictment in the case that could send some of the protesters to prison for up to 11 years.

They were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law that Attorney General Merrick Garland has called a key tool . . .

Notably, these protestors are being prosecuted by an attorney general, Merrick Garland, who was described by one of his law clerks as not “super religious”:

My sense is he wasn’t super religious or observant but very culturally Jewish — like a lot of American Jews.

The Supreme Court, for its part, elected, last month, to let the free speech restrictions outside abortion clinics stand:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday passed up a chance to consider overruling its own precedent allowing protective "bubble" zones around abortion clinic patients, turning away a challenge by a Catholic woman . . .

The justices declined to hear abortion opponent Debra Vitagliano's appeal of a lower court's decision to throw out her lawsuit that had claimed the Westchester County measure that had limited protests or "sidewalk counseling" near abortion clinics violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment right to free speech.