Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
But it passed with less support this year than last year, which is good news. Reuters reports:
The U.N. General Assembly condemned defamation of religion for the fifth year running on Friday but support continued to erode for a resolution Western countries say threatens freedom of speech.The assembly passed the Islamic-sponsored resolution with 80 votes in favor, 61 against and 42 abstentions. That compared with 86 votes to 53 with 42 abstentions for a similar text last year and figures of 108-51-25 in 2007, the last time the measure commanded an absolute majority of U.N. members.
This is a non-binding resolution that comes up each year. The fact that fewer states seem to vote for it each year is a very good thing. Let's hope that continues.
But Angela Wu of the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty said the resolution "provides international cover for domestic blasphemy laws that are overbroad and easy to abuse.""The concept of 'defamation of religions' undermines the foundations of human rights law by protecting ideas instead of people, and empowering states instead of their citizens," Wu said in a statement.
I could not agree more. Too many people forget one very important idea: All rights are individual in nature. Group rights are oxymoronic. No group has any right not to be criticized or disliked.
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Ed stated:
While I agree with the affect of this statement, I think this sort of framing is partially responsible for conservatives searching the Constitution to find a right. I think such framing damages our position in fighting against government powers encroaching on our rights. I've been on this pedantic crusade for the last couple of weeks and my mission was further fueled reading this Scalia argument* about how he can't find an abortion right in the Constitution nor could anyone else for 200 years. I would instead frame this statement (clunkily) as follows:
I think we need to always push the idea that government doesn't grant us our rights nor can government decide what our rights are or are not. We instead own our rights, we reserve the right to exercise those rights and in fact demand protection by government to our free exercise; unless we've explicitly delegated powers to limit or prohibit our exercise of a right(s) or when government is defending the clearly superior rights of others as we both agree is essential in this case.
H/T - always worth reading Jonathan Rowe posting at Positive Liberty.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 21, 2009 9:42 AM
Michael Heath,
I read the article that Jon links and the blog post about it. DeLong takes what Scalia is
saying completely out of context. With that said, I do not agree with Scalia's interpretation of Romans 13 either because it is out of balance. We are debating this currently at Jon's other blog American Creation if you want to join the conversation.
I can go with your framing of this though.
Posted by: King of Ireland | December 21, 2009 10:31 AM
This "defamation" of religion bullshit is being pushed by intolerant, humorless bastards with a control fetish. And they just happen to be Muslim. I'm surprised there aren't Christ-tards here in America who're supporting this.
Posted by: WMDKitty | December 21, 2009 2:46 PM
I think they won't support it because they're worried it would prevent them from criticizing homosexuality. It is a "lifestyle choice" in their world, and would not be far from religion in their minds.
Then there is the field of evolutionary biology. Plenty of creationists try to claim that "Darwinism" is a religion, and therefore, should be excluded from public school education. These people would not want to be silenced on this.
Posted by: ckitching | December 22, 2009 1:51 AM