Vance is right — Britain really has ‘thoughts-and-prayers’ policing

“Free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” said Vice President J.D. Vance to an audience of world leaders at a security conference in Munich on Friday, with a rhetorical punch comparable to Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Vance pointed to various censorial “hate speech” policies spewed out from Brussels and across Europe, and to the troubling arrest of a Christian in Sweden who used his freedom of expression to burn a Qur’an. Building to a crescendo, Vance then highlighted the “most concerning” case of Adam Smith-Connor — the British army veteran and father of two who was convicted in November 2024 for praying silently, for a few minutes, on a public space across the road from an abortion facility.

Smith-Connor, who previously fought in Afghanistan, was given a criminal record and ordered to pay £9,000 ($11,300) in adverse costs for breaking the rules of a local “buffer zone” ordinance banning “expressions of approval or disapproval” of abortion on several streets in the area.

Judge Orla Austin ruled that even though he was only engaged in silent, prayerful thought, his presence within the buffer zone could still have a “detrimental effect” on people attending or working at the clinic. Authorities took over £100,000 ($126,000) from the public purse to ensure his prosecution. With support from ADF International, he’ll be appealing his conviction in July.

Adam is one of multiple Christian individuals in England to face trial for their prayers in such censorial zones. Christian preachers have frequently faced nights in cells for expressing their beliefs in public. Meanwhile, according to official inquiries, the British police has failed to prosecute Muslims involved in serious and violent “grooming gang” crimes for fear of appearing “Islamophobic”.

The concept of a “thought police” is, of course, Orwellian. Yet the British government has decided to nationalize these locally enforced “buffer zones” on October 31 ’ banning “influence” within 150 meters of every abortion facility in England and Wales. As a result, the United Kingdom actually has “thoughts-and-prayers” policing.

We all stand against harassment. But claiming offense by virtue of the contents of someone’s unspoken thoughts is beyond ludicrous in a diverse and democratic society.

As America recommits to fundamental freedoms – with a freshly printed Executive Order to end discrimination against Christians now in place — the emerging cultural chasm between American and Europe has never more visible.

Vance is right to bring this matter to the world stage. The UK, as other Western nations, is all too quick to speak out when nations across Africa and the Middle East enforce grotesque “blasphemy laws” which leave “heretics” against the dominant orthodoxy to rot on death row for speaking out about their beliefs. But the West will have no moral leg to stand on if they continue to target and silence Christians at home — even on the basis of their mere thoughts.