NSW police are right to insist the marchers keep away from George Pell’s funeral

Activists planning to target Cardinal George Pell’s funeral want more than just free speech – they want to get in the face of the mourners, which is simply bullying.

No, this won’t be a “protest” and banning it isn’t an attack on free speech. What activists plan for the funeral of Cardinal George Pell is simply bullying.

A LGBTQ group, Community Action for Rainbow Rights Activists, says it plans to have 300 people march right past Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral on Thursday while Pell’s friends and admirers inside mourn his death.

No doubt the protest will also include haters who won’t accept the clear evidence – upheld seven High Court judges to nil – that Pell is not guilty of raping two boys in church, a bizarre claim which had Pell wrongly jailed for 404 days for a crime he couldn’t possibly have committed.

Protest spokesperson April Holcombe, a Marxist anti-imperialist, claims the protesters will just walk on by and won’t disrupt the service.

I won’t take that promise to the bank.

Hundreds of activists plan to march past Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral on Thursday during Pell’s funeral. Picture: Ben Symons

The last protest I saw Holcombe help organise was outside a conference of conservatives last year, and protesters there screamed abuse, scuffled with attendees and even tried to break in, and the way a hyper-excited Holcombe spoke on 3AW of the plans for the Pell funeral led me to expect little better.

Holcombe said: “He (Pell) used a powerful position in society in a highly well-connected religious hierarchy to advance reactionary social causes that most people don’t agree with … And now the people who are determined to carry on his legacy, like Tony Abbott, are going to be at this funeral and we’re determined to send them a message.”

I doubt sending a message to Abbott includes quietly walking past the Cathedral, so NSW police are right to insist the marchers keep away.

The protest is set to go ahead while Pell’s friends and admirers are inside the church mourning his death. Picture: AAP

This is no attack on free speech, since Holcombe can go yell somewhere else. What these protesters want is more than speech; they want to get in the face of the mourners.

Believe me, if I or other people mourning Pell thought he was a pedophile or pedophile protector – another false charge – we would not honour his memory.

Others may think Pell evil, but we should each respect the right of the other to differ.

But these protesters don’t. They can’t stand letting other people alone – even at a funeral – if they think differently.

This intolerance is the act of bullies. These hypocrites claim Pell was intolerant, but I know he’d never have done to them in their grief what they plan to do to Pell’s grieving friends.

Originally published as NSW police are right to insist the marchers keep away from George Pell’s funeral