Oxford city council cancels Jules Gomes transgender talk

Oxford City Council has stepped in at the last minute to cancel the booking for Oxford Men's Group's event which was due to take place in the town hall tomorrow.

It comes after a host of celebrities have been urged not to speak at the Oxford Union by a protest group which accuses it of repeatedly inviting far-right thinkers.

Oxford Men's Group had organised for Jules Gomes to give a free talk entitled 'feminism was women's greatest enemy - until transgenderism came along' and has accused the council of 'discriminating against Christians' after its venue was pulled.

Ian Brooke, the council's head of community services, said the council is now reviewing its booking policy as it was not previously aware of the subject of the lecture.

He said: "We have cancelled the booking for this event.

"We were not aware of the subject of the lecture when the booking was made, and we would like to apologise to Oxford’s LGBTQIA+ community for the distress this has caused.

"We support Oxford Pride festival and the LGBT+ Oxfordshire website, and this lecture does not accord with our core commitment to valuing diversity.

"While we support the principle of free speech this does not give anyone the right to use Oxford City Council as a platform for discriminatory speech.

"It has no place in any of our buildings, and we are undertaking a review of our bookings policy to prevent this from happening again."

Lucy Warin was one of the people to speak out about the event on Twitter, calling it 'an insult' to every trans person in Oxford that had 'no place' in a civic building as she shared a link to an article about a recent homophobic attack on a London bus.

She welcomed the swift actions of the council as did city councillor Shaista Aziz who praised the authority.

But others have accused it of attempting to stifle free speech, calling the actions 'shameful'.

In an advert for the talk, Dr Gomes is described as an 'outspoken journalist and academic' who is known for his 'excoriating critique of postmodernism & cultural Marxism.'

Little is known about the actual content of his planned talk but 'lively debate' was promised.

A former vicar in the Isle of Man, he was banned from the Church of England ministry in 2016 after a disciplinary tribunal found he is 'prone to losing his temper and displaying anger', according to the Christian Today website.

He has since written extensively on his own blog and for the political website Conservative Woman.

Dr Gomes, who spent much of yesterday retweeting supporters who were criticising the council, has previously described Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London, as 'safe space Sarah, the box-ticking Bishopette of Londonistan'.

The council said it objected to headlines on his website which included 'State bans freedom of assembly so LGBT activists can poison our kids' and 'How US elites made gay marriage a pillar of establishment orthodoxy'.

Oxford Men's Group spokesman Ian Johnson said the short notice given by the council had left them with no choice but to cancel the event.

He said: "We are astonished by Oxford City Council's extraordinary allegation that we had threatened the council's 'valuing diversity' policy. We had in no way threatened this, or any other, council policy.

"However, the council has acted to prevent an ordained clergyman from speaking in public about Holy Scripture.

"Holy Scripture is God's Truth and there is nothing controversial in speaking about Biblical values in Oxford, which has been a stronghold of theological scholarship for more than a thousand years."

He added: "The council chose not to communicate with us prior to the implementation of its ban and hence we had no opportunity to respond to the council's specific allegation before the ban was imposed.

"Had the council chosen to ask us for the full text of Rev Jules Gomes' lecture, we would have been happy to oblige.

"This is a dark day for Christian people in Oxford.

"The council ought to be ashamed of itself for discriminating against its largest religious minority: the Christians of Oxford. Oxford's Christians are also citizens of this city and our views have as much right to be heard as the views of anyone else."