I must confess, I never saw myself as a violent man or a threat to the nation. In fact, this was pointed out to me by no less a figure than the leader of the Opposition. Because of this I have found myself asking whether I should immediately turn myself in to the police, the secret service or whoever is responsible for the national security of this country.

You see, the thing is that I think the Church is barmy. Not only that but I think it brainwashes its followers and is essentially a rich institution whose main goal is to get as much funding from its followers as possible.

I am one of the many who have sat down to watch a documentary about how barmy it was.

A documentary, incidentally, which has since been banned from certain cinemas.

I understand that by stating this I will be offending millions of believers, among which we can count the great and good such as John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Chick Corea. Luckily for me, I am not alone.

Indeed, some countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and Russia, will not recognise it as a religion, while others, such as the Netherlands and Australia, do. I am of course referring to the Church of Scientology, founded by the sci-fi writer and confabulator L. Ron Hubbard.

So why would I be a threat to national security? Well it’s that old hoary question of the vilification of the Church law, which the Labour government is threatening to remove.

According to media reports, the leader of the Opposition has called the law’s removal a threat to national security.

“What happens if someone hotheaded decides to take matters in his own hands?” he was reported to have asked.

What indeed!

Simon Busuttil then suggested that, rather than the removal of said ‘vilification law’, the solution was to extend said law to others.

“In a country that respects beliefs and freedoms, all religions must be protected in the same manner. Roman Catholic religion is already at an advantage in our law and what we propose is that all religions are treated equally,” he apparently said.

Allowing vilification may be painful to some, unpleasant and unnecessary to most of us, but given a choice between that and the erosion, subtle or otherwise, of our freedom of expression, there is no option

Which is when, I confess, I started worrying.

But before rushing off to the nearest police station, I thought I should share a few thoughts with the readers.

The first being why should religious institutions require more protection than that afforded to, say, a person or any other organisation? What does it need protection from? Non-believers?

I understand that words can be harsh, cruel even, but surely these institutions have survived long enough to withstand a few blunt words.

And whatever happened to turning the other cheek?

More importantly, what do we understand by ‘vilification’? If I say that it is when the Church of Jehovah’s Witnesses instructs followers they should not accept blood transfusions during an operation (or allow their children to have blood transfusions)?

Or when the Catholic Church tells followers in Africa not to use condoms they could be responsible for the death of thousands, is that vilification?

Even scarier is Busuttil’s remark that someone ‘hotheaded’ may take matters into his own hands.

I hope that this was just a slip of the tongue. The last time I heard similar reasoning was when a judge tried to justify rape by saying the girl was wearing a miniskirt.

A few years ago in Birmingham, a play was pulled from performance at the last minute because some ‘hotheads’ from the Hindu community, without even having seen the play, decided that the production would offend them, as certain scenes took place in a Hindu Temple.

The police told the theatre and the ‘actors’ that they could not guarantee their safety.

A few years earlier, another play, Corpus Christi, was also pulled for religious reasons after some ‘hotheads’ objected to its homosexual overtones.

The irony was that the play was written to explore Christ’s message of love and peace and was a response to an attack by an ultra-right Christian gang who had attacked and killed an American teenager because he was gay.

Allowing vilification may be painful to some, unpleasant and unnecessary to most of us, but given a choice between that and the erosion, subtle or otherwise, of our freedom of expression, there is no option.

And all this in the year of Je suis Charlie.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I will go turn myself in.

Chris Gatt is a theatre director.