Even the most bizarre and controversial public figures are not as bizarre and controversial as their followers on social media.

I was reminded of this following the suspension of Calvin Robinson from GB News yesterday for his attitude to misogyny. In addition to his job as a GB News presenter, Robinson is a deacon in the so-called Free Church of England.

Some of Robinson’s supporters on social media are claiming that he has been suspended for standing up for the Gospel. I am not sure which gospel they are reading. Perhaps one in which Jesus defends powerful men who make misogynistic and sexually explicit abusive comments about women in public.

If so, this is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Megan Basham, a right-wing Christian author, responded to Robinson’s suspension by writing, “Daring to believe clear orthodox Christian doctrine out loud means you will no longer be welcome to share your views in secular media”.

Aaron Edwards, a right-wing evangelical whose main preoccupation seems to be attacking feminism, tweeted his support to Robinson, saying, “Well done, brother. Speaking the truth truly means doing so when it is inconvenient to do so.”

Perhaps the award for most bizarre comment on the whole issue should go to the person with the Twitter handle @alexrubner. He responded to Robinson’s suspension by tweeting the pope.

He wrote, “Dear @Pontifex this is intolerable. An offence against the memory of the Martyrs against the Church against all that is holy. Please Father intervene”.

However, the first person to respond to Robinson’s tweet saying he had been suspended was Father John Naugle, a priest in the US. He wrote “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” This is a quote from Jesus in reference to his followers being persecuted. Robinson tweeted back, “Amen”.

Ginna Cross, an anti-abortion activist in the US – whose Twitter profile is full of denunciations of divorce, trans people and left-wing Christians – tweeted to Robinson, “Praying for you. God will bless your boldness.”

A generous view might be to suggest that most of these sort of comments on Twitter are made by Catholics in the US who may not be following British news and may be unaware of the realities of the case. However, a significant number appear to be from people in the UK. And not it is not difficult for anyone to find out the true details, even from the other side of the world.

As is well known now, the controversy began with comments by far-right posh boy Laurence Fox on Thursday evening. He said, “I can say this, because we’re passed the watershed”. Perhaps he thinks it’s a watershed for misogyny rather than a watershed for adult content. He then launched into a vicious, personal, sexually explicit attack on the journalist Ava Evans, saying that nobody would want to have sex with her – or, to use his revolting words, “to shag that”.

Presenter Dan Wootton looked slightly awkward but smiled and chuckled. Ava Evans was erroneously described as a “hard left commentator” and inaccurately accused of dismissing concerns about men’s suicides.

When GB News’ flailing bosses suspended Fox and Wootton, Calvin Robinson responded by defending Wootton in particular, saying “Standing up for Dan is standing up for the very idea of GB News. If he falls, we all fall.”

Robinson is a deacon in the Free Church of England, a bizarre denomination that is neither part of the Church of England nor a “free church” in the usual sense. It was formed by people who think the Church of England – a bastion of institutional homophobia – is not homophobic enough.

I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of Robinson’s faith. God can see into his heart; I cannot. God will judge both him and me. This doesn’t stop me opposing Robinson’s anti-LGBT, anti-refugee, pro-monarchy views. He has now crossed another line in defending misogynistic and sexually explicit verbal abuse.

Robinson, Wootton and Fox like to talk about free speech. As far as I am aware none of them have responded to the arrests of peaceful protesters by speaking up for free speech. I certainly did not hear from them when I was arrested last year for peacefully voicing opposition to the monarchy. The free speech that they love to champion is the free speech of influential men such as themselves to insult and abuse people.

If free speech means anything, it means the right of all people to be heard, not the right of powerful people to have their own TV programmes regardless of how they use their influence and who gets hurt.

The right-wing Christians leaping to Robinson’s defence have exposed the hollowness of their usual claims. These are the same sort of people who like to talk about sexual morality, who say that same-gender relationships are sexually unethical and who try to claim that supporting trans rights is harmful to women.

Now these guardians of sexual morality are defending the “right” of a man to publicly talk discuss a woman with whom he disagrees by saying that he wouldn’t “shag that”. And the right of another influential man to respond by laughing at the “joke” on air.

Open the New Testament and you will find in Jesus a man who challenged the conventions of his day, spoke with women with a respect that society found shocking, criticised the sort of divorce that allowed men to throw women into poverty, and told men to take responsibility for how they look at women.

Calvin Robinson has not been suspended by GB News because he stood up for these values. He stood up for people who oppose them.