# Opposing persecution without accepting freethought's promise

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH03.P019](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P019/#char=1307,1354): "Militant atheists are still unjustly persecuted"

A concrete earlier example is G. W. Foote's prosecution over the *Freethinker*. In *Prisoner for Blasphemy* (1886; inspected in Project Gutenberg's electronic transcription of the Progressive Publishing Company text), Foote describes the Christmas 1882 number as the publication for which he received twelve months' imprisonment. Chapter IX records shorter sentences for his co-defendants Ramsey and Kemp. This is an interested participant's testimony, not a neutral court transcript, but it makes the paragraph's concession concrete. Chesterton can regard religious punishment as unjust while denying the persecuted movement's claim to intellectual novelty or future promise. The distinction matters: the paragraph's asserted philosophical bankruptcy is not offered as a justification for censorship. [Foote, chapters V and IX](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7076/7076-h/7076-h.htm).

## Sources

- [G. W. Foote, Prisoner for Blasphemy](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7076/7076-h/7076-h.htm), Title page (London: Progressive Publishing Company, 1886); chapter V, opening; chapter IX, verdict and sentencing conclusion

Revision 1 · 2026-11-07 · https://glosses.org/a/a_ldko5mwq/