Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Ireland is going to hold a public referendum vote on whether to remove a constitutional requirement that the nation have laws against blasphemy.
Ireland is to hold a referendum on removing a blasphemy ban from the constitution, the justice minister announced yesterday.At the beginning of the year, the republic introduced legislation making blasphemy a crime punishable with a fine of up to €25,000 (£22,800).
The law defines blasphemy as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted". The referendum will be held this autumn.
The reaction from atheist groups:
The advocacy group Atheist Ireland welcomed the decision today. When the law became operational, Atheist Ireland published 25 blasphemous statements on the internet to challenge it, including Richard Dawkins calling the Old Testament God a "petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; ... a capriciously malevolent bully", and Björk saying "fuck the Buddhists".Atheist Ireland chairperson Michael Nugent said: "This is a positive move by the minister. We look forward to the autumn referendum as part of our overall campaign for an ethical, secular Ireland. We ask all reasonable citizens to work together to ensure that the referendum is won.
"We reiterate that this law is both silly and dangerous: silly because it is introducing medieval canon law offence into a modern pluralist republic; and dangerous because it incites religious outrage and because its wording has already been adopted by Islamic states as part of their campaign to make blasphemy a crime internationally.
"The blasphemy reference is one of several anachronisms in our constitution that will ultimately need to be changed. Other examples are the religious oaths that prevent atheists from becoming president, or a judge, or a member of the council of state."
It's rather mind blowing that this could still be an issue in 2010, isn't it?
Politics
Comments
The fundies want this in America. Thank FSM for the Bill of Rights.
Posted by: MikeMa | March 20, 2010 9:28 AM
Do Catholics and Protestants still find each other's positions 'blasphemous'? Hmm, I sure that'll calm down the situation in Ireland enormously [eye-roll] - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | March 20, 2010 9:42 AM
If Hindus consider cows sacred, wouldn't every slaughterhouse in Ireland be guilty of blasphemy?
Posted by: Pither | March 20, 2010 9:44 AM
Will the Catholic Church campaign one-half as hard for this as they have on either of the recent Irish abortion referenda?
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | March 20, 2010 9:52 AM
@ Pither:
"If Hindus consider cows sacred, wouldn't every slaughterhouse in Ireland be guilty of blasphemy?"
No - the outrage has to be intentional, and it only applies to written/spoken material. As horrible laws go, this one is relatively well-worded.
The real danger, and one which the Atheist Ireland folks have nicely highlighted, is that this law will be enforced selectively. Either as a cherry on top of a normal arrest ("ooh, you said a naughty word when I baton-charged you! That'll be €25k please), or as a stick to beat humanist political groups with (the way it gets used in Islamic countries).
Posted by: Corkscrew | March 20, 2010 9:52 AM
Posted by: mxh | March 20, 2010 9:53 AM
Just how 'significant' is significant? - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | March 20, 2010 10:00 AM
*** All beer tastes horrible!! ***
I sometimes fantasise about saying those words into a live microphone in front of a large crowd of people in Ireland, to express my opinions regarding blasphemy laws and the respect that they deserve.
Posted by: Adrian Morgan | March 20, 2010 10:18 AM
"and Björk saying "fuck the Buddhists"."
That's not blasphemy, that's just rather simple rudeness. I know they're just trying to be evenhanded and all, but I don't think Buddhism really is concerned with blasphemy.
Posted by: Pohranicni Straze | March 20, 2010 11:14 AM
Interestingly, Ed, our home state of Michigan has a blasphemy statute on the books (MCL 750.102-750.103). This is separate from the "using profane language in the presence of women and children" statute (MCL 750.337), which was the cause of a prosecution a few years back.
From my reading (and IANAL, so take this for what it's worth), simply saying "god damn you" to someone would be a violation of 750.103. I'm sure any decent law student could write a brief that would convince a court this statute is facially unconstitutional in his sleep. I wonder when the most recent prosecution was, or whether there ever has been one.
Posted by: Don K | March 20, 2010 11:28 AM
If I understand correctly, the constitutional requirement is for there to be a law that prescribes the punishment for blasphemy. So don't change the constitution - change the law to set the penalty to two pennies. That would almost make it worth my time to fly over - so I could give them my two cents' worth.
Posted by: BobApril | March 20, 2010 11:30 AM
In case none of you realised, seven U.S. state constitutions forbid atheists from holding political office. The situation in Ireland is the result of an out-dated constitution. Not even the minister who introduced the new blasphemy law wanted blasphemy to be an offence but was advised by the Attorney General that it was required.
Posted by: Paschal | March 20, 2010 11:31 AM
Paschal wrote:
Which cannot be enforced since 1962, when the Supreme Court rightly declared such laws unconstitutional. They are dead letter laws.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 20, 2010 11:39 AM
1. Did she?
2. Are there pictures?
Posted by: kehrsam | March 20, 2010 12:11 PM
SO THE DUBLIN REGIME WILL OUTLAW THE MASS?!?!?!
THIS I'D LOVE TO SEE!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: AMERICAPHILE MINISTRIES | March 20, 2010 12:14 PM
No - the outrage has to be intentional, and it only applies to written/spoken material. As horrible laws go, this one is relatively well-worded.
So mimes are giving a free pass to blaspheme? OUTRAGEOUS!
Posted by: jfatz | March 20, 2010 12:56 PM
"The law defines blasphemy as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion"
Funny that that anyone in Ireland would worry about "abusive" utterances when their clergy and religious have raped thousands of children.
Posted by: Dr X | March 20, 2010 1:51 PM
BobApril @11, there's a reason the penalty is as high as it is - because that way it has to be taken to the national court, and will probably be dismissed, whereas a local court is more likely to convict.
Generally, the whole point of the law was to make it as hard as possible to bring a prosecution. They didn't go for the option of holding a referendum to change the constitution originally because they were worried that people might actually be dumb enough to vote in favour of the law.
Posted by: Jefrir | March 20, 2010 2:08 PM
Actually, the prohibition against requiring religious oaths is in Article VI. We didn't even have to wait for amendments to get that right. And thank Madison.
Posted by: Tim H | March 20, 2010 2:34 PM
Fuck the Shakers. Better?
Posted by: Azkyroth | March 20, 2010 3:38 PM
"Fuck the Shakers"
Except Shakers don't do that. That's why the religion died out.
Posted by: Bill in NC | March 20, 2010 4:13 PM
Corkscrew @ 5:
I think you mean "causing the outrage has to be intentional." There's no doubt that the outrage itself is intentional. At any rate, this part of the law would be routinely ignored in practice.
Pohranicni Straze @ 9:
It isn't for the most part. Some Buddhist sects have sayings such as "If you see the Buddha on the street, kill him" or practices such as spitting on statues of the Buddha. The intent is to emphasize that Buddhism should focus on dhamma-vinaya (Pali for "the teaching (or the natural truth) and the discipline") rather than on the source of the teaching. In this sense, "seeing the Buddha on the street" is metaphor for accepting Buddhist doctrine based on its source rather than its merits. This is probably why religious pareidolia is so much more common among, for example, Christians (who do think that their faith comes from the person of Jesus rather than any of his teachings) than it is among Buddhists.
Posted by: Miko | March 20, 2010 5:47 PM
Texas was still successfully enforcing theirs at least as recently as the mid-1990s. CBC Radio's _As It Happens_ covered one atheist's attempts to overturn the ban. The Texas government had simply been playing a delaying game: Make the court case run past the end of the term, then get the case dismissed as moot.
Posted by: Rick Pikul | March 20, 2010 9:48 PM
Posted by: mxh | March 20, 2010 11:16 PM
With regard to Buddhism and tolerance of blasphemy, it depends very much on which Buddhists you're talking about. If you'll allow me to put on my film geek hat, which I rarely wear around here...
The great Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul saw his (utterly brilliant) 2006 movie Syndromes and a Century temporarily banned at home, and then released only in heavily censored form, in large part because of objections from official guardians of supposed Buddhist sensitivities, who apparently have considerable official sway in how their religion and its adherents are portrayed in the media. The ostensible offense (in this gentle and apolitical movie) was showing Buddhist monks flying remote-controlled toy planes, playing guitars, etc. - doing "undignified" regular people stuff, which was taken as an insult. Of course, censors tend to shoot themselves in the foot - Apichatpong successfully made the movie a bit of a cause celebre, refusing to recut it to disguise its mutilation, just releasing it with minutes on end of black screen and silence where the offending scenes were removed. There was even, if I recall correctly, an accompanying exhibition on the whole fiasco and censorship issues in general. Thus, it got a lot more attention than it would have otherwise - it's a snail-paced, elliptical, capital-"A" Art Film that would have gotten probably twenty viewers among regular Thai audiences if the government had just left it alone.
All of that said, there's probably a lot more going on under the surface of that particular censorship battle than meets the eye: the director is a Western-educated intellectual whose following is largely among Western intellectuals and film critics, and there's likely some cultural-political tensions involved as well, that the silly religious objections served as a cover for. I attended a Q&A with him in NYC, and a guy in the audience described being in Thailand working on do-gooder issues of some sort with some Buddhist monks, who were generally tolerant and liberal-minded people but were vehemently in favor of the ban. According to this young man, they described Apichatpong as "a threat to Thai culture" and told him that as a foreigner, he wouldn't understand and they couldn't even explain it to him. (The director responded to this story, with a mischievous glint in his eye, "Maybe I am.")
Sorry to ramble and run a little off-topic, but I think it's a fascinating story - and illustrative of the fact that Buddhists aren't immune from getting caught up in these sorts of absurd authoritarian uses of their religion.
Posted by: MPW | March 20, 2010 11:17 PM
> If Hindus consider cows sacred, wouldn't every slaughterhouse in Ireland be guilty of blasphemy?
This is a large part of why the Irish blasphemy law is such an oddity. Most countries with a blasphemy law have an official religion, or at least clarify to what religion(s) it should pertain. In Ireland, however, we have an interesting position; when the constitution was drafted, it contained the requirement for blasphemy to be a crime, and also recognised a number of religions, the Catholic Church (with a 'special position'; the exact meaning was never clarified), Judaism, and a few forms of Protestantism. This was removed by referendum in the 70s, and since then the old blasphemy law lapsed, until last year.
So yes, as it stands the blasphemy law is extremely unclear, does not apply to any particular religion, and it's not clear what, if anything, would trigger it...
Posted by: Robert Synnott | March 21, 2010 2:03 AM
Why and how does the Irish Constitution require blasphemy laws? Why don't they just amend it (America managed to do so)? - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | March 21, 2010 6:06 AM
@DJ:
The referendum would result in just that amendment, (and there is some question about that being the intent of the recent law).
As for why: The power of the Roman Catholic Church in most of Ireland at the time the Irish constitution was written was on a par with few places outside of Vatican City.
Posted by: Rick Pikul | March 21, 2010 11:24 AM
MPW writes:
...illustrative of the fact that Buddhists aren't immune from getting caught up in these sorts of absurd authoritarian uses of their religion.
Tibetan buddhism included the usual sectarian violence, and if I recall correctly one of the sects (was it the blue hats?) was completely wiped out. Excuse me "non-optionally reincarnated" Buddhists have done a good job of suppressing information regarding their history of violence, but it's just another bucket load of codswollop like all the other religions. I suppose it's fair to say "they're not as bad as the catholics" but that's the faintest praise I can damn them with.
Gosh, I just tried to link a reference by searching Wikipedia but apparently all the articles on buddhism merely reflect the peace-loving lotus-hugging good nature of the cult. Commendable intellectual honesty. Not.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | March 23, 2010 2:49 AM