So what bright spark in the Public Prosecution Service decided that prosecuting a 78-year-old cleric in ill health over a sermon he gave, to his own followers in his own church, was a good idea?
It's preposterous to suggest that hauling Pastor James McConnell before the courts for his remarks about Islam is in the public interest.
As an atheist, I carry no candle for Christian fundamentalists. But for the life of me I can't understand why the PPS, and the PC brigade, are so disturbed by Pastor McConnell's sermon one Sunday morning over a year ago.
His comments that Islam was "heathen" and "satanic" were streamed over the internet. He's now been charged with electronically communicating a "grossly offensive" message.
Well here's what I find grossly offensive. A religion whose practices mean that women effectively go through life veiled and chain.
A religion which in the 21st century embraces stoning, honour killings, wife beating, public flogging and cutting off limbs as punishment for theft.
A religion whose misogynistic Sharia laws degrade 52% of humanity and mean that a woman's testimony is worth half a man's and daughters get only half the inheritance of sons.
A religion whose scholars still debate whether gay people should be burned or stoned to death. A religion whose laws dictate that homosexuality is not just a sin but a crime. A religion whose practise, even in modern times, means that homosexuals are executed.
I shirk Pastor McConnell's religious phraseology to denounce Islam. But I'd denounce it every bit as vociferously in secular language were I on a public stage. The PPS would probably prosecute me as well.
Freedom of speech should mean that Pastor McConnell has every right to lambast Islam, as Islamic clerics have to lambast him and Christianity if they so choose.
But sadly our society rarely shows the same fearlessness and irreverence in tackling the Quran as we do the Bible.
We're quick off the mark when it's a Christian nutter but we see and hear no evil when other religious figures are involved.
In Belfast's Islamic Centre women are banned from even praying in the same room as men. No-one questions local Muslim leaders about this gender apartheid.
If such a situation existed in Belfast's Metropolitan Tabernacle it would be headline news and Pastor McConnell, or his successor, would be demonised by the media.
Christians in Northern Ireland are rightly harangued about their attitudes to same-sex marriage but nobody ever asks local Muslim leaders for their views on the subject.
I don't agree with Pastor McConnell's religious beliefs. But I understand how, when it comes to freedom of speech and freedom of religion under the law, he may feel hard done by.
