Either way tit for tat examples help nothing.
Fact is, police are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Plus it's good to just blame them for things they aren't in control of.
Either way tit for tat examples help nothing.
Fact is, police are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Plus it's good to just blame them for things they aren't in control of.
JK Rowling, CH OBE FRSL is an author whose corpus of speech is mainly her novel-writing. Now how did nine letters come to be placed after her name, even as she shortened her first two initials? Because her writing (speech) has been in exemplary service and support of the Crown and the British Empire.
So why would police arrest JK Rowling for pushing back against one wedge-issue in the culture war?
The 70-year-old Guy being arrested outside the abortion clinic for holding a rosary and praying, is that the singular offence he committed? Possession of a phoenix feather? Did he rescue Tom Marvolo Riddle's mother? I don't know. Neither do you.
But as they chose not to arrest her, this shields every other woman who might want to say similar. The argument being: if JKR can say a man is a man with impunity, then why can't anyone else?
So her making these statements of truth was a win either way. But being able to mount a solid defence in court, if needed, was essential to this strategy working.
The people who wanted JK Rowling arrested knew her views and comments are legal. If the police arrested her and she won in court, that would set a precedent and invalidate any attempt to use that legislation to prosecute people with similar views, which activists were hoping to use it for.
But also, her not getting arrested does the same.
So she was in a win-win position.
But yes I get and agree with your point. And it also highlights an important aspect often ignored in all this. The courts decide a person's guilt irrespective of police action, case law builds up around laws that are broad and easy to misinterprete.