One contained a stick-figure cartoon of two men having sex. One proclaimed “Thank God For Dead Soldiers” and another “God Hates You.” During the demonstration these signs faced what the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., and his family call the pro-America “pep rally” that greets them wherever they go — throngs of counter protesters, journalists, military veterans and police.

“We’re not picketing the funeral,” stressed attorney Margie Phelps, in a standing-room-only showdown with student journalists at the recent College Media Convention in New York City. “We’re picketing the pep rally.”

That may sound like a trivial detail, but it was central to the legal and, at times, theological arguments that unfolded when the Snyder family’s lawsuit reached the U.S. Supreme Court. This led to a sweeping 8-1 ruling on March 2 in favor of Phelps, his family and their tiny independent congregation in Topeka, Kan.

When arguing her case — both to the high court and the young journalists — daughter Margie Phelps stressed that a key point in the Westboro message is that the “you” in the slogan “God Hates You” was not a reference to Matthew Snyder, alone. The central idea of their protests is that God hates all sinners who have not repented and embraced their church’s hellfire-and-brimstone view of America’s moral decay.

When Phelps discussing those facing God’s wrath, she included just about every imaginable religious and political group. While Westboro is best known for its conviction that America is speeding toward judgment day because of its acceptance of gay rights, her conference remarks also included nasty shots at Jews, Catholics, Southern Baptists and Pentagon officials, among others.

Most of the students cheered her critics, mocked her stabs at humor and jeered her attempts to justify her beliefs. Yet the crowd remained rather quiet when, in a taped dialogue with First Amendment Center leader Gene Policinski, she repeatedly noted America’s long heritage of protecting the free speech rights of dissenters.

“The Christian in me could barely sit still and listen to Phelps twist the Bible. … Yet almost paradoxically, the American journalist in me felt a little bubble of pride,” said Rebecca Young of the University of Dayton, in an essay posted online afterwards. “As angry and upset as I was at the ideas espoused, I was proud of a profession and a country that acknowledges their freedoms don’t just exist when it’s convenient.”

To understand Westboro and its beliefs, stressed Margie Phelps, it helps to know that the church’s tactics have evolved during the past two decades and the 45,000 protests it claims to have staged at a variety of public events, including about 800 funerals.

For a decade, the central message was that America needed to repent and turn away from sin. But as the death toll kept rising in Iraq, she said Westboro’s leaders concluded that, “It’s too late now. … This nation is doomed.” Above all, they were infuriated when many of the funerals for the fallen turned into patriotic rallies.

“We watched as the politicians, the media, the military, the citizenry and the veterans used the occasion of these soldiers’ deaths to publish a viewpoint,” said Phelps, describing the First Amendment arguments she used before the Supreme Court. “And we said, ‘We don’t agree with your viewpoint. God is not blessing America. It is a curse that that young soldier, the fruit of your nation, is lying in there in that coffin.’ …

“That is not a blessing of God. … The soldiers are dying for your sins.”

The bottom line, concluded Margie Phelps, is that Westboro Baptist simply “joined that public debate” on public sidewalks, while following all existing laws that govern public protests. Now, national outrage about the court decision has strengthened the convictions of the Phelps family.

“These are desperate times, calling for desperate measures and we are going to get these words into your ears,” she said. By focusing on military funerals, the leaders of Westboro Baptist “know that we are hitting three of your biggest idols — the flag, the uniform and the dead bodies. …

“We are going to finish this work. The Lord God Jehovah has our back.”

But what if the cartoons included the Prophet Muhammad?

In one famous case, a professor at Century College in Minnesota dared to post the Muhammad cartoons that were published in a Danish newspaper. Facing fierce criticism, she put the images behind a curtain so that anyone passing her bulletin board would not see them unless they chose to do so. Administrators quickly created a policy requiring advance approval of all posted items.

It’s easy to find hot religion buttons on campuses. What if a club tried to screen Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and administrators banned it, citing its R-rating and controversial content? What if the same administrators allowed a play on campus in which a character pretended to perform a sex act on an image of Jesus?

What if a Jewish group sponsored a campus lecture by an Israeli official and it had to be cancelled due to heckling by Palestinian students? What if a professor urged students to destroy a campus-approved display of tiny crosses, created by pro-life students, that symbolically represented their opposition to abortion?

These cases are real and there are hundreds more.

Passions are boiling over on many campuses,” stressed attorney William Creeley, who directs legal teams for the secular Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “Students and professors and administrators are fighting about all kinds of things, but the surface issues are often proxies for the real issue — which is religion. …

“The garb in which these clashes are clothed may be student rights or campus fees, but they are usually about religion, morality and sex.”

A recent survey by the foundation, he said, found that 71 percent of America’s campuses try to enforce codes that in some way clash with the First Amendment. Meanwhile, many private schools — which can create covenants that limit many freedoms — are failing to warn students, faculty and staff about the contents of the documents they sign when entering these voluntary associations.

Catholic educators at Georgetown University had a legal right to ask the abortion-rights group “Hoyas for Choice” to operate under the name “H*yas for Choice” and to deny it some campus benefits. DePaul University had a right to deny equal treatment to a group called “Students for Cannabis Policy Reform.” The issue, said Creeley, is whether private-school leaders explicitly warn students and parents — before they enroll — about “what they are getting into.”

Scratch the surface and it’s easy to find religion in other campus conflicts. For example, “conservatives” often claim they face discrimination when seeking faculty promotions or jobs in prestigious schools, especially in science and political science departments. Programs that discuss Islam, or deal with Israel and the Middle East in general, continue to generate heat. Can faculty who dissect the Bible do similar textual criticism of the Koran?

However, any FIRE review of recent campus fights, said Creeley, would have to discuss whether or not religious groups on state campuses can insist that their leaders support their foundational beliefs. In other words, can a Jewish group insist that its leaders support the right of Israel to exist? Can a pro-life group insist that its leadership be limited to those who oppose abortion? Can an evangelical group require that all members of its leadership believe in the Resurrection of Jesus?

Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court — in another 5-4 decision — ruled that the Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco could require its Christian Legal Society chapter to use an “all comers” policy for members and leaders or lose its status as a campus organization. The case pivoted on the group’s affirmation that sex outside of marriage — the union of husband and wife — is sinful.

FIRE has tracked 40 or more disputes of this kind, noted Creeley, and there are sure to be more.

“I cannot think of anything less ‘liberal’ than what we are seeing on many campuses,” he said. While most educators “pride themselves on offering a ‘liberal education,’ ” many are now promoting “an orthodoxy that tempts them to edit the First Amendment. … You end up driving certain points of view off campus and silencing the religious voices that trouble you. That’s dangerous — period.”

“Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness. … The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity,” warned the psalmist.

Obviously, says the Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church, this passage teaches that God hates the evil liberals who run the Southern Baptist Convention, along with legions of other Americans.

Phelps also believes that God hates the pope and plenty of other religious leaders who are called “conservatives,” “traditionalists” and even “fundamentalists” in public debates about faith, morality and culture.

Southern Baptists are too liberal? Yes, that’s why activists from the independent Westboro Baptist congregation in Topeka, Kan., like to picket major SBC meetings carrying those now familiar signs with slogans such as, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “God Hates America,” “Thank God for AIDS” and, of course, “God Hates Fags.”

With Westboro Baptist, up is down and down is up.

It may take months for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the First Amendment puzzle that is the clash between Phelps and Albert Snyder, the grieving father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder. A Westboro Baptist team held a protest near the Catholic funeral of Snyder’s son and church leaders also posted a website screed claiming that the divorced father raised his son to “serve the devil.” A Maryland court gave Snyder $5 million, but the award was overturned.

Behind this pain and grief is a thicket of legal and journalistic thorns.

This is a case in which the mainstream press has spilled oceans of ink attacking Phelps’ flock. Nevertheless, the core facts provoked the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 21 news organizations to file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the church’s right to hold legal protests and for journalists to cover them. News executives are especially worried because the protesters complied with all restrictions imposed by civic officials, including moving their demonstration away from the church. Snyder saw their hateful slogans in news reports and on the Internet.

This is case in which scholars have struggled to find a way to defend the free speech and religious liberty rights of Westboro believers, as well as the religious liberty and privacy rights of grieving family members.

In a reluctant defense of Phelps, a New York Times editorial quoted Justice Felix Frankfurter: “It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have often been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.” I once heard a church-state scholar put it this way: “Your religious liberties have been purchased for you by believers with whom you wouldn’t necessarily want to have dinner.”

What about the American Civil Liberties Union? After all, in the 1970s this organization backed the right of neo-Nazis to march through Skokie, Ill., a small community that was home to a large number of Holocaust survivors.

In a court brief backing Westboro Baptist, “we pointed out that the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech guarantees that no one can be found liable for merely expressing an opinion about a matter of public concern, regardless of how hurtful those opinions might be,” noted Chris Hampton, a leader in ACLU efforts to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender causes.

The goal, she added, is to protect First Amendment principles that have been “essential to the advancement of civil rights, including the civil rights of LGBT people. Allowing Fred Phelps to speak his mind may be difficult, but chipping away at one of the fundamental principles on which our country was founded is far, far worse for all of us in the long run.”

This is, of course, precisely the kind of liberal thinking that Phelps condemns out of hand, even when voiced by religious conservatives. According to his reading of Psalm 5 and many other scripture passages, Phelps believes that God hates what he calls “kissy-pooh” sermons that refuse to proclaim that God never, ever forgives homosexuals and many other sinners.

The Westboro website once warned preachers who claim that God will forgive those who repent, no matter what: “You are going to Hell! Period! End of discussion! God’s decree sending you to Hell is irreversible! Hypocrites!”

“That’s Bible preaching,” Phelps told Baptist Press, in a 2003 interview about his beliefs. “You tell [people] that God loves everybody? You’re lying on God.”

The controversial pamphlets contained comments such as, “Throughout history individuals have tried many ways to gain or earn eternal life, but every attempt has been unsuccessful.” There were Bible verses, such as, “Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Titus 3:5a.”

What happened next has reopened a painful debate about so-called “no go zones,” areas that may as well be off limits to British citizens who do not heed Islamic laws.

According to a statement by the Rev. Arthur Cunningham, the “police community support officer” told him “you’re not allowed to preach … here. This is a Muslim area. He said, ‘You know, you guys are committing a hate crime here with what you’re doing. I’m going to have to call you in and take you in.’ Then he took his radio and he said something like, ‘There’s a hate crime in progress here. I need assistance.’ “

This occurred three months ago, but legal actions by Cunningham and the Rev. Joseph Abraham have created a wave of new coverage. Both men carry American passports, although Abraham was born a Muslim in Egypt and then converted to Christianity.

While declining to discuss details, West Midlands Police officials have released statements saying their investigation found that the officer acted “with the best of intentions” and that “the PCSO has been offered guidance about what constitutes a hate crime and advice on communication style.”

Another statement: “We would like to assure all communities that there are not any ‘no go’ areas in the West Midlands Police area and we will defend the rights of the individual to freedom of expression and religious faiths.”

The “no go zone” debate began in earnest when Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, who was raised in Pakistan in a family with Christian and Muslim roots, expressed fears that England is splintering into segregated communities of citizens living “parallel lives.”

“It is critically important to all that the freedom to discuss freely and perhaps to have our views changed, whether in politics, religion or science, be encouraged and not diminished,” wrote Nazir-Ali, in a newspaper essay that led to death threats against him.

Christianity and Islam are both evangelistic faiths, which creates sparks when their traditional, growing forms collide. However, Christian evangelism is banned in many Muslim lands and some Christian converts have faced death sentences as apostates.

In the Alum Rock case, the missionaries freely admit they were seeking converts. Abraham and Cunningham insist that they were told they would be physically attacked if they dared to return.

“The actions and words used by the officers were intimidating and were calculated to warn and-or frighten our clients and to have the effect of deterring our clients from lawfully expressing their opinions and manifesting their beliefs and to have a chilling effect on the exercise by them of their right to manifest their beliefs,” according to a document prepared for police by activists at the Christian Institute. “Our clients were left with the understanding that they could not express their religious beliefs in Alum Rock Road without committing a hate crime.”

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has reported that the officer involved in this incident is active in the local branch of the National Association of Muslim Police. The West Midlands police force also made recent headlines when it accused a BBC Dispatches program — entitled “Undercover Mosques” — of distorting Muslim statements about terrorism.

All of this has led to heightened tensions about how to balance Muslim concerns with British laws.

“Freedom is not, of course, absolute. It is only possible in the context of the Common Good, where the freedom of each has to be exercised with respect for the freedom of all,” according to a new essay by Nazir-Ali, in Standpoint magazine.

“Freedom of belief, of expression, and the freedom to change one’s belief are, however, vitally important for a free society, and the onus must be on those who wish to restrict these in any way to show why this is necessary. Nor can we say that such freedoms apply in some parts of the country and of the world and not in others.”

As a rule, religious words are safer than religious actions.

Consider these numbers from a new Ellison Research study that shows surprising support — on the left and right, among believers and skeptics — for freedom of expression when it comes to words and symbols.

An overwhelming 90 percent of adults agreed that faith groups should be allowed to rent public property, such as a school gyms, if laws gave non-religious groups the same right. Asked about allowing a moment of silence in public schools, 89 percent said that was fine. Another 88 percent said teachers should have the right to wear jewelry, such as a cross or a Star of David, in public-school classes.

“There is a lot of unity out there about these kinds of issues,” said Ron Sellers, president of the research firm in Phoenix. “But the specifics do matter. Wearing a cross on your lapel is not the same thing as showing up a school wearing a t-shirt with a big cross on it and the words, ‘Believe in Jesus or you’re going to hell.’

“There’s no way to say that approving one thing is the same as approving another, even though the same principle is at stake.”

The key is that religion is bad if it makes large numbers of people uncomfortable.

For example, 83 percent of the survey participants said it should be legal to put nativity scenes on public property, such as city hall lawns, and 79 percent supported the posting of the Ten Commandments in court buildings. But that number fell to 60 percent when they were asked about Muslim displays on public property during Ramadan.

This study asked another crucial question linked to a religious liberty issue that is affecting a wide variety of faith groups, especially in higher education.

The researchers asked if respondents agreed that it “should be legal for a religious club in a high school or university to determine for itself who can be in their membership, even if certain types of people are excluded.” The result was a stark divide, with only 52 percent agreeing that religious groups should be able to enforce their own doctrines among their own members.

“People might respond differently if you asked the same question, but were more specific,” said Sellers. “I think most Americans believe that a Jewish student union should have the right to say, ‘No, you’re Muslim. You cannot join our group.’ But what if it’s a conservative Christian group that says, ‘No, you cannot join our group because you’re gay’? American aren’t sure what they think about that, right now.”

The trend is clear. Vague talk is safer than clear action. Personal beliefs are good, but not if these doctrines lead to actions that indicate that some beliefs are right and others wrong.

Seeking is good, but finding is bad.

Judging is even worse.

For example, a new survey by the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Research team found that 72 percent of “unchurched” Americans who rarely if ever attend worship services believe that “God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists.” However, 61 percent agreed or strongly agreed that the God of the Bible is “no different from the gods or spiritual beings depicted by world religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.”

The researchers found that 78 percent of the respondents claimed that they would be “willing to listen” if a Christian wanted to share talk about their beliefs. Then again, 44 percent agreed that “Christians get on my nerves.”

“There is a sense in our culture that is acceptable to believe in anything spiritual, as long as it makes you a better person and helps you find peace,” said Ed Stetzer, leader of the LifeWay Research team. “One’s faith only becomes a problem when that belief actually makes claims that contradicts the faith of others.”

In an age of “I’m OK, You’re OK” spirituality, he added, “American spirituality has glorified ‘searching’ for spiritual meaning, but de-emphasized ‘finding.’ In other words, it is good to be looking for spirituality, but it is intolerant to actually believe you have found a right faith. … Intolerance is defined to mean actually believing that your faith is the correct one.”

The Rev. Rick “Purpose Driven Life” Warren is a Baptist and so is the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The Rev. Bob Jones III of Greenville, S.C., is a Baptist and so is the Rev. Al Sharpton, Jr., of New York. The Rev. Bill Moyers is a Baptist, or used to be, and that’s also true for the Rev. Pat Robertson.

There are all kinds of Baptists, so saying people are “Baptists” may do little to clarify what they actually believe.

But two things are clear. The first is that the Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., is a Baptist. The second is that millions of other Baptists wish Phelps and his infamous flock would stop calling themselves “Baptists.”

“It does make you cringe when you read about Phelps and Westboro, because you rarely see anyone stress that these people have no connections to Southern Baptists or to American Baptists or to anybody else,” said Greg Warner, editor of the Associated Baptist Press, one of two news agencies that cover Baptist life.

“This is just some of the baggage that comes with being Baptist. It goes with the territory.”

Phelps and his followers make keep making headlines because of their protests at military funerals, featuring signs with shocking slogans — such as “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” The church has about 60 members, most of them related to Phelps, and teaches that God is punishing America because of this culture’s growing acceptance of homosexuality. A jury in Baltimore recently handed down a $10.9 million verdict against Westboro because of its ugly protests at the March 2006 funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, who died in Iraq.

At its website — GodhatesAmerica.com — the church offers this history: “Established in 1955 by Pastor Fred Phelps, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas still exists today as an Old School (or, Primitive) Baptist Church. … We adhere to the teachings of the Bible, preach against all form of sin (e.g., fornication, adultery, sodomy), and insist that the doctrines of grace be taught publicly to all men. These doctrines of grace were well summed up by John Calvin in his 5 points of Calvinism: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. Although these doctrines are almost universally hated today, they were once loved and believed.”

The church does not, however, appear to be part of the National Primitive Baptist Convention of the U.S.A. Then again, it isn’t linked to the Southern Baptist Convention, the American Baptist Churches, the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., the Conservative Baptist Association of America, the American Baptist Association (Landmark Baptists), the Regular Baptist Churches, Reformed Baptist Churches, Free Will Baptist Churches, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the National Baptist Evangelical Life and Soul Saving Assembly of the U.S.A., the Independent, Fundamental Baptist Churches or any other known Baptist group.

Obviously, it’s hard for Baptists to agree on a common definition of what “Baptist” means. One online definition states: “A member of an evangelical Protestant church of congregational polity, following the reformed tradition in worship and believing in individual freedom, in the separation of church and state, and in baptism of voluntary, conscious believers.”

However, various streams of Baptist life predate the birth of the modern “evangelical” movement. And would Baptists agree they are “reformed” churches or “Reformed,” as in rooted in Calvinist teachings? Do Baptists today share a common understanding of the “separation of church and state”? Of course not.

All Baptists would, however, stress a congregational approach to church government and the autonomy of each local congregation. This means that it’s all but impossible for any Baptist flock to tell another flock what to do — unless they’re part of a larger voluntarily association or convention.

“Just about anyone can get themselves ordained and then say that they’ve started a church,” said Will Hall, head of the 16.4-million-member Southern Baptist Convention’s official Baptist Press news agency.

But in the case of Westboro Baptist, he said, it isn’t even enough “to call them an independent Baptist church, because they’re not typical of the many independent Baptist churches and missionary Baptist churches out there across America. This is a tiny church that’s out there all by itself and that’s the way they want it.”

A fundamentalist Baptist cut the liberal icon’s throat in broad daylight on a New York City street after the release of “Submission,” his movie with actress Susan Sarandon that attacked the Religious Right for oppressing women. As a final symbolic act the killer used his knife to pin an anti-abortion tract to Moore’s chest, with an explicit warning that Sarandon was next.

All of that is fiction, of course.

Still, it’s interesting to contemplate how the media would respond if a crime like this did occur. Would reporters rush to cover an address by Sarandon if she ventured into public to berate the fundamentalists? Would Hollywood find a way to honor her during the Academy Awards for her stand against religious tyranny and for artistic freedom?

Moore and Sarandon are alive and well. However, the Dutch feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali remains in hiding after the 2004 murder of her artistic partner, the brash and profane filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The duo’s “Submission” linked verses in the Koran with violence against women and then showed the holy words written on the skin of semi-naked actresses.

A Dutch-born Islamist decided to retaliate. Before killing van Gogh on a street in Amsterdam, Muhammad Bouyeri was known for translating a 14th century tract entitled ?The Obligation to Kill Anyone who Insults the Prophet.? He shot van Gogh 15 times and slashed his throat before impaling on the body a five-page letter threatening Hirsi Ali, who had been elected to the Dutch parliament a year earlier.

Hirsi Ali has continued her writing and political work as best she can. She also risked a recent public appearance in Berlin to rage against Muslims who have marched and rioted to protest those 12 Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammad.

“I am here to defend the right to offend,” said Hirsi Ali, a native of Somalia who fled to the Netherlands as a refugee. “Shame on those papers and TV channels who lacked the courage to show their readers the caricatures in the cartoon affair. These intellectuals live off free speech but they accept censorship. They hide their mediocrity of mind behind noble-sounding terms such as ‘responsibility’ and ‘sensitivity.’

“Shame on those politicians who stated that publishing and re-publishing the drawings was ‘unnecessary,’ ‘insensitive,’ ‘disrespectful’ and ‘wrong.’ … Shame on those European companies in the Middle East that advertised ‘we are not Danish’ or ‘we don’t sell Danish products.” This is cowardice. Nestle chocolates will never taste the same after this, will they?”

For her Muslim critics, the Berlin speech merely confirmed that Hirsi Ali is a “loyal slave” of her new European masters,” according to Al-Jazeera commentator Ali Al-Hail, a media professor at the University of Qatar. As an apostate Muslim, she has been telling lies about Islam in exchange for a “fistful of Euros” so she can fill “a gap in her starving abdomen,” he said.

Nevertheless, it’s important to note that few Western liberals have rushed to defend or praise Hirsi Ali, he said, via email. Her press coverage has been thin.

“The American left has been so silent since the assassination of Theo Van Gogh,” said Al-Hail, who recently taught as a Fulbright scholar at Simpson College in Iowa. “I have also observed this silence. As to why? Probably, probably, the American left is sympathetic to Muslims over the current crises.”

Hirsi Ali is convinced that her usual allies are afraid. This crisis, she said, has underlined the “widespread fear among authors, filmmakers, cartoonists and journalists who wish to describe, analyze or criticize intolerant aspects of Islam. … It has also revealed the presence of a considerable minority in Europe who do not understand or will not accept the workings of liberal democracy.”

While it is wrong to stereotype Muslims, Hirsi Ali stressed that she believes the prophet Mohammad made mistakes — especially on women’s issues, gay rights, free speech and the separation of mosque and state.

Thus, she said, “I think it is right to make critical drawings and films of Muhammad. … I do not seek to offend religious sentiment, but I will not submit to tyranny. Demanding that people who do not accept Muhammad’s teachings should refrain from drawing him is not a request for respect but a demand for submission.”

Other signs in London said: “Behead those who insult Islam,” “Europeans take a lesson from 9/11” and “Prepare for the REAL Holocaust.” The organizer of the Feb. 3 event told the BBC that he looked forward to the day when “the black flag of Islam will be flying over Downing Street.”

But what stunned British writer Geoffrey Wheatcroft was something else he saw while blitzing through news reports about the waves of fury inspired by those 12 Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammad.

“Not only did the police make no arrests” during the London demonstration, even though it “openly incited murder; they actually sheltered the fanatics,” he noted, in a Slate.com essay. “Two men who tried to stage a peaceable counterdemonstration were hustled away for questioning. A working-class Londoner … was told in violent language by a cop to get back in his van and go away.”

This raises a disturbing question: Have British citizens lost the ability to exercise their free speech rights in public defiance of demands by many Muslim clerics and politicians for limitations on the freedom of the press in the West?

It’s hard to answer this kind of question right now because a “moral climate change” has destroyed England’s certainty that some things are right and some things are wrong, said Bishop N.T. Wright of Durham, in a speech last week in the House of Lords. Thus, civic leaders cannot agree on the meaning of words such as “freedom” and “tolerance” and religious faith is seen as a threat instead of a virtue.

“The 1960s and 1970s swept away the old moral certainties, and anyone who tries to reassert them risks being mocked as an ignoramus or scorned as a hypocrite. But since then we’ve learned that you can’t run the world as a hippy commune,” said Wright, a former Oxford don who also has served as Westminster Abbey’s canon theologian.

“Getting rid of the old moralities hasn’t made us happier or safer. … This uncertainty, my Lords, has produced our current nightmare, the invention of new quasi-moralities out of bits and pieces of moral rhetoric, the increasingly shrill and polymorphous language of ‘rights’, the glorification of victimhood which enables anyone with hurt feelings to claim moral high ground and the invention of various ‘identities’ which demand not only protection but immunity from critique.”

Instead of focusing on the cartoon crisis, Wright described other signs of legal and moral confusion in British life. Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, sent painfully mixed signals after last summer’s suicide bombings. His government leaned one way when it tried to ban efforts to “glorify” terrorism. Then it leaned the other way with legislation that would ban the promotion of “religious hatred.”

Wright stressed that it will be dangerous to pass laws that attempt to replace, amend or edit religious doctrines that have shaped the lives of believers for centuries. But politicians seem determined to try.

Thus, Birmingham University forced the Evangelical Christian Union off campus and seized the group’s funds because it refused to amend its bylaws to allow non-Christians or atheists to become voting members.

Thus, Wright noted that police have shut down protests in Parliament Square against British policies in Iraq. Comedians — facing vague laws against hate speech — are suddenly afraid to joke about religion. And was there any justification for government investigations of the Anglican bishop of Chester and the chairman of the Muslim Council of Great Britain because they made statements critical of homosexuality?

Public officials, said the bishop, are trying to control the beliefs that are in people’s hearts and the thoughts that are in their heads. The tolerance police are becoming intolerant, which is a strange way to promote tolerance.

“People in my diocese have told me that they are now afraid to speak their minds in the pub on some major contemporary issues for fear of being reported, investigated, and perhaps charged,” said Wright. “I did not think I would see such a thing in this country in my lifetime. … The word for such a state of affairs is ‘tyranny’ — sudden moral climate change, enforced by thought police.”

That was the good news. The bad news was that they wanted to talk about God, politics and homosexuality, although not necessarily in that order. It also didn’t help that the people they wanted to talk to were midshipmen on the U.S. Naval Academy campus — on a football-weekend Friday, no less.

“Free speech is free speech,” said White, who, before going public as a gay activist, was a ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and other evangelical leaders. White is one of the founders of Soulforce, which is based in Lynchburg, Va.

“If people don’t want to talk, all they have to do is say so and walk away.”

Soulforce activists drifted around the academy campus in small clusters last weekend, their bright pastel t-shirts standing out among the blue uniforms and gray Chesapeake Bay mists. They attracted packs of journalists.

The 40 or so protestors — mostly college students from nearby — offered this greeting: “We’re here to talk about the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. What do you think about that?”

Most midshipmen declined to talk. Capt. Helen Dunn, deputy superintendent at the academy, had issued this memo: “Members of this group may attempt to gain access to the Yard and approach you for discussions. We ask that you carry out your normal routine, … stay clear of our security personnel and the protestors, and to politely refer questions from media or the demonstrators to the Public Affairs Office.”

These are tense days at America’s military academies, which are emerging as bitter battlefields in church-state wars.

At the Air Force Academy, the hot issue is salvation. Evangelicals have been accused of going overboard as they interact with non-Christians and non-believers. Evangelical chaplains have even been attacked for delivering evangelistic messages in voluntary chapel services and other optional events. A circle of conservative lawmakers recently wrote to President Bush urging him to issue an executive order guaranteeing the free-speech rights of chaplains.

Right now, the hot issue at the Naval Academy is sexuality. Activists are trying to break what they believe is a faith-based chokehold on military policies affecting the careers and relationships of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans-gendered persons.

At the Air Force Academy, it’s hard to speak up in favor of conservative religious doctrines.

At the Naval Academy, it’s hard to speak up in opposition to them.

In both cases, believers — on left and right — are trying to proclaim what they believe is true. They are trying to change hearts and minds through the power of words and public witness. The problem, of course, is that one person’s free speech is another’s evangelism, public protest or, heaven forbid, even proselytizing.

At some point, said White, government officials must realize that people have a right to dialogue and debate. People have the right to talk and the right not to listen.

“It’s like all the people who want to censor television. You keep trying to tell people like that, ‘Don’t censor us. Just change the channel,’ ” he said, while greeting visitors outside the academy bookstore. “That’s what this is all about, too. We just want to talk to people and let them know what we think. What’s so scary about that?”

At first, Naval Academy officials threatened to have the demonstrators arrested if they came on campus. Then both sides agreed to a shaky compromise that allowed the activists the same rights as other visitors, other than the right to talk with midshipmen. Most members of the Soulforce team went right ahead and talked, said Reitan, leader of the group’s “Equality Ride” program.

In the months ahead, Soulforce teams will be traveling to a dozen or more other campuses — including the other military academies and an array of conservative religious colleges and universities from coast to coast.

“Hopefully, people at the campuses we stop at in the future will be willing to set up forums and create other kinds of settings in which we can discuss these issues in a more adult, academic manner,” said Reitan. “But we have decided that we’re not going to let our free speech to be edited during any of our future stops.”

Then again, these products do not include pronouncements on sin, sex, money, marriage, heaven, hell and a host of spiritual issues — including the belief that salvation comes through faith in a messiah named Jesus.

So International Bible Society leaders were not surprised that some people were upset by their decision to distribute 91,000 New Testaments in a pre-Christmas edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette. They were surprised when the project made national headlines, inspiring debate about free speech, religious tolerance and the role of newspapers in the marketplace of ideas.

“Whenever we try to put the word of God into people’s hands there are going to be negative reactions. We have to accept that as a given,” said Bob Jackson, head of this national project. “You’re going to hear from atheists and agnostics. You’re going to hear from people in other faiths and Christians who disagree with what you’re doing. … We know that this stirs up emotions that you just don’t see when you are giving away packets of oatmeal.”

Right now, the Colorado Springs-based Bible society is evaluating the results of this New Testament project, which was funded by 125 nearby churches, businesses and evangelical ministries, such as Focus on the Family and Youth for Christ. Jackson said it cost $125,000 to print and distribute the 200-page volume, with its cover photo of Pikes Peak and testimonies by local believers.

Some Jewish and Muslim readers protested, arguing that the “Our City” title implied that Colorado Springs was an all-Christian community. Other critics said it was wrong for a mainstream newspaper — which was paid its standard fee for such an insert — to distribute material that was unapologetically evangelistic.

After all, the back cover said: “The heart and soul of the Bible is its account of God’s intention to bring all things back to Himself. That includes this great place. And that includes you. This New Testament is being given to you to help you find your place in this drama of restoration.”

The New York Times reported that the Gazette received 195 positive reactions and 69 negative, with five readers canceling their subscriptions.

While declining to discuss the future, Jackson said he has received calls from supporters for possible efforts to distribute customized New Testaments in the mainstream newspapers in at least 20 U.S. cities. He would not confirm or deny press reports about Denver, Nashville, Seattle and Santa Rosa, Calif.

Meanwhile, the International Bible Society has been involved in another tussle in the mass-media marketplace — Rolling Stone’s refusal to advertise its new youth-oriented Today’s New International Version of the Bible. While Modern Bride, The Onion, MTV and some other outlets cooperated, Rolling Stone cited an unwritten policy against religious messages in ads.

While avoiding obvious God-talk, the Zondervan ad did carry this blunt slogan: “Timeless truth; Today’s language.”

Rolling Stone balked and then, this week, quietly relented.

The bottom line, said Jackson, is that it’s hard for religious organizations to take their messages into the public square without stepping on some toes.

The Bible society freely admits that its goal is to get New Testaments into the hands of people who are not already Christian believers. The goal is to reach “seekers” or even active opponents of the faith, said Jackson. Some may decide to read some of it, simply to “see what all of the fuss is about.” Others may throw it in a drawer and then, weeks or months later, pull it out in the midst of some personal trial.

This is the hard truth. From the “Our City” team’s evangelical perspective, the people who need to be reached are almost certainly the same people who are most likely to be offended.

“We really believe that we are trying to share the powerful word of God. We believe it can change lives,” he said. “So we believe that we’re doing what God has commanded us to do. We can’t stop trying, because we sincerely believe that lives will be changed — even among those who oppose us. You just can’t reach the searchers without offending people.”