Ireland is trying to push through a blasphemy law.
The Minister for Justice proposes to insert a new section into the Defamation Bill, stating: "A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000."
"Blasphemous matter" is defined as matter "that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage."
Michael Nugent, of Atheist Ireland said that the Bill was silly and dangerous.
"It is silly because it revives a medieval religious law in a modern pluralist republic, and it makes Ireland seem like a backward country. People need protection. Ideas do not. Ideas should always be open to criticism and ridicule. If the law is passed, we will be immediately testing it by publishing a blasphemous statement."
11 comments:
This is like watching a car crash in slow motion.
The next logical step is punishing people for what blasphemous things they might be "thinking", and we all know where that leads.
Oh well, on a positive note, the radical Muslim hate-clerics will love it, maybe they'll relocate from London to Dublin?
Translation - if you offend a lot of people and that offence is caused because they have irrational beliefs, then you are a criminal.
Interestingly, Britain has just replaced its old blasphemy law with a new one. For many years, the blasphemy law was assumed to be dead (the last time anyone was imprisoned under it was in 1921). Probably the only reason the subject has been revived is because adherents of the newer religions (newer to Britian, anyway) get offended a lot more easily than Christians. No doubt it was though in the public interest that these groups should not be offended.
I didn't know about the new blasphemy law here, but I was thinking the same thing, Mel, about concern regarding violence by religious groups.
I'm far from a religion scholar, but I recall reading in history classes that all religions are basically thinly-recycled ideas from the old babylonian/sumerian mythologies/polytheisms. Because of that I assumed that they all have tenets in common like turning the other cheek. But maybe that isn't correct. Are there some gods that advocate violence in response to disrespect?
Didn't Jack Straw suggest a couple of years ago that global warming sceptics be treated like terrorists and be censored from the press? That's sort of the same thing, isn't it?
Isn't the *real* translation more like, if you point out any irrational beliefs or behaviours of the Catholic Church then you will be buggered (financially). It seems like this is the only way they can avoid more bad press?
At least the makers of Father Ted (Deities in their own right of course) have started a campaign against this nonsense.
Lisa, I think mel is referring to the new religious hate speech laws, which are like close "cousins" of our old blasphemy laws IMO.
Interestingly the old laws only used to outlaw blasphemy against the Church of England, you could still slag off any johnny foreigner religion as much as you liked ;-)
The law is supposed to protect against hate speech rather than criticism but as we know many religious people often translate "hate" into "disagree with" which is the free-speech slippery slope that worries me.
So the new laws are intolerant of intolerance? ;-)
Lisa, LOL, you might think that, I couldn't possibly comment ;-)
What worries me is who defines "hate" vs. legitimate criticism.
IMO it is safer to criminalise threats to people and property and leave ideas out of it. Any idea (like religion) should be able to be ridiculed, parodied, hated, criticised or indeed loved but as soon as you start threatening to cut a person's throat or shoot an abortion doctor for not believing in your particular sky fairy then that is where the line is crossed I reckon.
But Steve, what if hate speech leads to those actions? Can't the actions be prevented by preventing the speech?
Steve said:
"...if you point out any irrational beliefs or behaviours of the Catholic Church then you will be buggered (financially)"
and only literally if you happen to be a young, male member of the faith.
On Friday July 11th, 2009, Ireland passed the Defamation Bill by one vote. One of the aspects of this bill would make it illegal to criticize religion… any religion under penalty of fines up to 25,000 Euros. That is the equivalent to nearly $35,000. When I first heard this story on the internets, I was certain that it was a false story. I read the story, googled it, checked out legitimate Ireland news sites, and double checked more Ireland news sites. The story checks out.
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