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Brother Damon KellyCourtesy of the Black Hermits

February 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Brother Damon Kelly, the Catholic hermit-turned-crusader against homosexuality, is free again to distribute pamphlets describing homosexual relations as sinful, after a British court threw out a Criminal Behavior Order silencing him for five years.

“This defendant, as any individual in this jurisdiction, has a right to believe in the views in the leaflet and the right to express the views, so long as it doesn't stray beyond the law,” declared the appeal judge in overturning the gag order.

“It's not what I expected,” Br. Damon told LifeSiteNews. “It's a miracle, really.”

Br. Damon, 54, is one of a group of three self-described hermits who live in community wherever they can find a host or modestly priced accommodation. In 2014, Br. Damon began printing and distributing fliers door to door chiefly condemning homosexuality, but also abortion and militarism. This netted him 10 arrests by different British police forces and also got the trio kicked out of church lodgings in Corby by the local bishop.

All but one of the charges failed, though the hermit had to spend a few hours in jail several times while police pondered whether a crime was involved in either condemning homosexual relations or putting such condemnations through mail slots.

“A policeman later told Br. Damon that there had been four teams of CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] calling in experts,” fellow hermit Sister Colette Roberts told LifeSiteNews today. “They could find nothing that could be taken as 'hate crime' … but they were trying to find other means to stop him.” The CPS spent four months on the task without success – then Br. Damon made a mistake.

Two years ago in Leicester, two American women were so provoked when his flier came through their mail slot that they chased him down the street, identifying themselves as “lesbian witches” and castigating him verbally. Taken off guard, Br. Damon commented that “witches used to be burnt,” adding that he was not in favor of this but merely observing how seriously society once took such claims.

Where Br. Damon crossed over the legal line was in following up that conversation two weeks later by putting another pamphlet through the Wiccan pair's door that explained the basis for Christianity's hostility to witchcraft – its belief that witches are in league with the devil.

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“In England that counts as harassment,” said Sr. Colette, “even though he was trying to save their souls and lead them to eternal happiness.”

“They've never got me on the content, you see,” Br. Damon told LifeSiteNews last fall, because his written material condemned actions but never individuals. But two unwelcome approaches to the same individual constitute harassment, regardless of content.

Late last year, he pleaded guilty and was punished with a curfew from 3 pm to midnight for six months. Further, now that he was a criminal, the Crown could get a Criminal Behavior Order issued that restrained Br. Damon for five years from distributing “unsolicited material” about religion, homosexuality, or abortion to anyone in England and Wales.

Br. Damon appealed, and last week Judge Nicholas Dean, Q.C. nullified the CBO, saying that it was intended for far more serious behaviors than this and restating the right of free speech and expression. “No one in this country,” said Judge Dean, “has a right to be protected from offensive material or from material that causes anger.”

Commenting earlier on Br. Damon's case, Andrea Williams, executive director of the Christian Legal Centre in London, said it characterized British officialdom's efforts to create harmony in a multicultural state. “There are more and more coming up all the time. It is public pressure, and the police feel a responsibility to protect diversity, but they do not understand what is protected by free speech in public space. There have been arrests and people spending the night in jail.”

But British judges do understand the country's hard-won democratic freedoms, said Williams, and so far her organization has never lost a court case defending religious speech.

“The judge didn't like my thinking at all. He kept calling my pamphlets absurd and said that people would have no trouble seeing through them and didn't need a CBO to protect them. Given that, he was pretty fair,” said Br. Damon.

Br. Damon said that his group is living in Scotland temporarily and that with the curfew still in place, he cannot get to dense population areas in England. Once the six months are over, however, “I'll get back to it, maybe with a more general emphasis on Church teachings and God's will for us” and less of a focus on homosexuality. “There are plenty of mail slots wanting my pamphlets.”

The United Kingdom's preoccupation with maintaining social harmony led to the Rotherham sex abuse scandal, exposed two years ago. Police, social workers, and elected officials there turned a blind eye to the systematic sexual abuse of children by “Asian gangs” (read: Muslim men) for fear of being accused of racism.

More recently, the suspicion that Muslim radicals who left Britain to fight for ISIS in the Middle East had been educated in private Islamic madrassas has led to a call for a crackdown on homeschooling and youth groups – Christian, Muslim and secular – to ensure that they aren't training more radicals.