The US government has made it clear that it concerned about the decline of freedom of speech in Britain and Europe, with both the State Department raising the “concerning” case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a woman charged for silently praying in an abortion buffer zone.
Now US politicians are set to hear from others who have fallen foul of “woke” policies, with visits from one of the Darlington Nurses who recently won a landmark judgment defending single-sex spaces, and from Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen who has been dragged repeatedly before the courts over a biblical tweet.
Bethany Hutchison, president of the Darlington Nursing Union, is in Washington DC for meetings on Wednesday, accompanied by Andrea Williams, CEO of the Christian Legal Centre, which supported the Darlington Nurses in their successful legal challenge.
The nurses had protested about being required to share changing facilities with a biological male who identified as a female. When complaints were made, the male colleague is alleged to have offered to help educate the nurses as to why they should be willing to get undressed in front of him.
On 16 January the nurses won their case, which alleged unlawful harassment, direct sex discrimination, and a violation of their dignity and safety.
Hutchison and Williams will be speaking at a 'She Leads the Nations' Global Summit on Capitol Hill. As part of their visit they will be talking with US politicians about the Darlington case and the general state of freedom of speech and Christian liberty in Britain.
Also visiting the US this week is Päivi Räsänen, who has been at the centre of a years-long legal battle over a single tweet in which she quoted the book of Romans about homosexuality.
Despite previously being acquitted of any wrongdoing, Finnish prosecutors have sought to escalate the matter, taking it all the way to the country’s Supreme Court.
ADF International, which has been supporting Räsänen, said her case was “one of Europe’s most prominent examples of the criminalization of speech”. She will be speaking at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.
ADF said it wished to “warn [US] lawmakers of Europe’s expanding speech restrictions, including criminal prosecutions for peaceful expression".
"These restrictions pose serious threats to fundamental freedoms and risk being exported beyond Europe to the United States," it said.
