New Blasphemy Crime for Ireland?
April 29, 2009 by Michael Nugent
The Irish Government’s new proposed blasphemy crime combines the oppressive religious thinking of 1950s Catholic Ireland and modern Islamic fundamentalism.
This proposal should be opposed for three reasons. One, it does not protect religious belief; it encourages outrage and it criminalises free speech. Two, it treats religious beliefs as more valuable than secular beliefs and scientific thinking. Three, we should be removing 1930s religious references from the Irish Constitution, not legislating to enforce them.
Atheist Ireland, as an advocacy group for a rational, ethical, secular Ireland, encourages Irish citizens to lobby their TDs about this proposal. Here are detailed arguments for the three reasons to oppose it, plus a summary of the proposed new crime and its background.
The proposed new blasphemy crime and its background
Under the proposal, which is part of a wider defamation bill, “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.”
The background is this: Under Article 40 of the Irish Constitution, blasphemy is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law. In 1999, the Supreme Court found that the existing law against blasphemy was unenforceable, as there was no definition of blasphemy.
Last year the Oireachtas committee on the Constitution recommended removing the reference to blasphemy from the Constitution. Instead, this proposed new law creates a legal definition of blasphemy, in order to make the offence punishable in law.
We should be working towards an ethical and secular society, where we address our differences of belief in rational terms.
Reason One: This proposed law does not protect religious belief; it encourages outrage and it criminalises free speech.
Under this proposed law, if one group of people expresses one belief about gods, and a second group of people thinks that this insults a different beliefs about gods, then the second group can become outraged, and this outrage makes it illegal for the first group to express their beliefs.
The problematic behaviour here is the outrage, not the expression of different beliefs. Instead of encouraging outrage, we should be educating people to respond in a more healthy manner than outrage when somebody expresses a belief that they find insulting.
Also, it is not restricted to expressions about beliefs. This outrage could be triggered by people expressing scientifically validated facts about the origin of the universe, which could be offensive to young earth creationists.
More worryingly, this law would encourage, reinforce and protect the type of orchestrated outrage that Islamic fundamentalists directed against Danish cartoonists and novelists. It could also help Islamic communities in Ireland to enforce Sharia law on Islamic women living here.
Reason Two: This proposed law treats religious beliefs as more valuable than secular beliefs and scientific thinking
From an ethical perspective, I find it abusive and insulting that the Christian Bible suggests that a woman should be stoned to death for not being a virgin on her wedding night, or that it is okay to kill your slave if he dies slowly, or that effeminate people are unrighteous, or that women must not teach and must learn in silence, or that people should worship a God who threatens to make you eat your own children, who sends bears to kill children for mocking a bald man, and who says that he will bring so much evil it will make your ears tingle.
From a scientific perspective, I find it abusive and insulting that Christians teach impressionable children that the creator of the universe impregnated a virgin to give birth to himself, or that many dead bodies rose from their graves and walked through Jerusalem when Jesus died, or that the creator of the universe turns pieces of bread and volumes of wine into his own body and blood every time a priest on the planet earth chooses to utter a particular set of words. I believe that these false beliefs harm the ongoing human quest for knowledge.
If enough atheists are outraged about these passages, should the Christian Bible be banned? I do not believe that the Bible should be banned, and neither should discussion of the Bible in terms that cause Christians to be outraged.
Reason Three: We should be removing 1930s religious references from the Irish Constitution, not legislating to enforce them
Today, under the Irish Constitution, you cannot become President or be appointed as a Judge unless you take a religious oath under God asking god to direct and sustain you in your work. Also, an atheist Taoiseach or Tanaiste could not take their place on the Council of State without swearing a religious oath.
This means that up to a quarter of a million Irish people cannot take up these offices without swearing a lie. These religious declarations are contrary to Ireland’s obligations under the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The preamble to our Constitution states that all authority of the State comes from, and all actions of the State must be referred to, a specific god called the Most Holy Trinity. It also humbly acknowledges all of the obligations of the people of the State to a specific god called Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In Article 44, the State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God and that the State shall hold His Name in reverence. This is not an assertion of the right of citizens to worship this god. It is an assertion of the right of this god to be worshipped by citizens.
The Constitution also contains other references to this god. Article 6 states that all powers of government derive, under God, from the people. Article 40 makes blasphemy an offence. The last line of the Constitution dedicates the Constitution to the glory of God and the honour of Ireland.
Our national parliament recognises the rights of this god by starting each day’s business with a prayer to it. This prayer explicitly asks this god to direct the actions of our parliamentarians, so that their every word and work may always begin from and be happily ended by Christ Our Lord.
There are also other references in the Constitution to religion, as opposed to gods.
We should be amending our Constitution to remove these theistic references, not creating new crimes to enforce provisions that were written in the 1930s
Some International Context
The UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights contains articles which militate against the idea that blasphemy is a crime. Article 7 says everyone is equal before the law. Article 21 supports democracy not theocracy. Article 18 declares that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Article 19 says everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
In 2007 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe made recommendations on how States should treat blasphemy, religious insults and hate speech. It noted that States must act within the limits imposed by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, and said that:
“In this connection, the Assembly considers that blasphemy, as an insult to a religion, should not be deemed a criminal offence. A distinction should be made between matters relating to moral conscience and those relating to what is lawful, matters which belong to the public domain, and those which belong to the private sphere. Even though today prosecutions in this respect are rare in member states, they are legion in other countries of the world.”
However, in recent years, Muslim countries have led a campaign to persuade the United Nations to oppose defamation of religion. In March 2009 the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning “defamation of religion” as a human rights violation. The motion was proposed by Pakistan to combat defamation of Islam, as in the case of the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, and opposed by Western countries who said it would restrict freedom of speech. The World Jewish Congress condemned the vote as an attempt to further the blasphemy laws of some Muslim countries.
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I’m sorry, but are there places in the world where people’s lives are at stake because someone’s bad-mouthing gods? (Of course, any gods worth their salt as gods should be able to stand up for themselves, but I digress.)
It seems to me that the religious’ right to oppress is alive and well all over the world, be it women getting stoned to death in Muslim countries to Catholic school boards reserving the right to misinform girls about HPV in my progressive home of Canada.
I heard the liveline programme. I am not muslim but was sensitive to the fact that you seemed to be drawing attention to the specific threat of islam in the context of freedom of speech here in the west.
I am certainly no atheist and disagree profoundly with your views but would staunchly defend your right to express them.
I was interested to know if you had to temper your comments – you seemed to be trying to highlight the main context or backdrop to this issue….the U.N blasphemy proposal, mostly backed by Islamic states, but my point is you seemed like you had to camouflage it or not come out explicitly with bare comments on islam alone. This is also in light of the comment when the presenter made a comment about ‘catholic outrage’ and again you seemed to push that it was more that the outrage would be from a muslim quarter. Now I am well aware you are an equal opportunity atheist – so this is no comment trying to elicit some sort of atheist turnaround.
However I do recognise that any religion or God that is strong enough should be well able to cope with the withering well-aimed volleys of the slings and arrows of a truly free society.
I am a Christian and am quite aware at saying that to an atheist knowing the knee-jerk conscious response an atheists thought processes undergo on hearing such…eh….blasphemy, and how it might colour your view of further comments. Now that you know where i stand – I would defend your right to blaspheme my creed to high heaven – after all early christians were put to the lions and preached in gatherings in the wild. If the cathedrals need to be demolished and we are to die defending our right to profess our faith then so be it.
I am also called to defend justice and defend those who are persecuted. In a free society, freedom of expression is critical within the normal parameters i.e adult content etc. If I start building legal supports for my religion – what does that say about my God, my faith and strength of that faith.
I have researched islam and have come to change my view of it from being a peaceable arab version of the bible (yes i do know what your thinking right now) and that mohammad was the arabs prophet, promoting peace and goodwill. I have come to realise it is a cult (yes i know from the atheist viewpoint that is how you may possibly see all religions or faiths) however some are far more ‘virulent’ or pernicious than others. Islam is more than a religion it is a political system. I am not sure what you know of islam, but the blaspheme laws would suit islam far more than any other religion.
I am aware that here in Ireland, the Irish are not very aware of Islam and are so caught up in seeing that being multicultural and ‘tolerant’ in terms of things foreign is somehow an indication of how we are now grown up as a nation. In fact it is the opposite, it is an inability to discern the good from the bad no matter where it comes from and having the maturity to have the integrity in voicing such, even or especially when it is foreign. Irelands inability to, nay, abject fear of saying anything critically derogatory of anything foreign is a continuation of our inferiority complex rooted in a desire to be a mature nation among mature nations.
It is partly why Roy Keane is both un-Irish and supremely Irish at the same time and probably the root of the subconscious divide on that issue when he walked out. By doing such he exemplified where Ireland needs to go in terms of self-discovery and maturity.
I think Islam is a great threat to western civilisation, and a growing threat. It has not impacted much yet here in Ireland but it will. A bit of research into Islam will tell the rational that this is a hysterical, bullying, ideology which is prescriptive and has no evolutionary mechanism for a reformation, in fact it is set in stone and I am wondering if in the future the saying will be ‘it is set in the koran’. The difference with Christianity is that it is descriptive and has always been evolving, also following the old testament is not Christianity, following the teachings of Christ and his example is.
Also in Islam Mohammad is seen as the ideal man and muslims are directed in Islam to follow his example – if you know the life of this man it is something dispicable to behold. I was not aware of this and am sure most westerners are not either, but when told simply say – well look at christianity and it had its barbarities before it evolved. The problem here is that the barbarities are nowhere on the same scale nor are they mandated by Christ, it is mandated in Islam.
Leaving aside your displeasure/disgust of christianity…i was wondering do you know of the ins and outs of Islam?
In the end some Christians misguidedly will support this blasphemy law thinking it is to the best – little do they know that Christianity can take criticism and should welcome it, but the true trojan horse here is Islam, if describing the unholy life of mohammad is now blasphemy then educating people as to its true nature is a lost cause and it is free to spread like the virulent(my atheist side) strain that it is(think swine flu).
All the best.
Ceallach
Thanks for the helpful analysis, Ceallach. I agree with you that we in ireland need to become more educated about the theory and practice of Islam and its impact on democracy. I’ll reply in more detail later.
I’m outraged by your article Michael. I demand €100,000 to assuage my outrage.
Seriously though, maybe we should start a campaign of being outraged. We could be outraged that non-virginal brides aren’t being stoned to death. We could put some serious claims in against the government, to highlight the ludicrousness of this return to medieval outlook.
If it does get passed, that’s a good idea. We should be positioning this as the absurd law that it would be. Hopefully we can pre-empt that happening, and avoid having to outrage ourselves.
Good article MN – I listened to a recording of you on the radio yesterday and you were bang on. The very idea of a blasphemy law disregards utterly our freedom of speech. I was astonished that Pat Rabbitte only wanted it watered down – where is his outrage?
Keep up the good fight
I don’t think they could implement that law worded as it is.
Firstly, it does not quantify the phrase “substantial number”, thus leaving it entirely subjective. Secondly, a successful prosecution would be contingent on proving that the defendant intended to cause outrage. So in his attempt to add clarity to the constitution, Minister Ahern has added none at all.
can you comment that ‘in your more detailed reply’ that its more likely dermot ahern is looking to uk then to look to the islamic countries pushing the resolution in the un
if i tell an atheist i believe in god and that atheist becomes outraged, he is outraged because he believes there is no god, which could in turn outrage me. it is rediculous they even allowed this.
why don't we just close the door on muslim immigraton? Solve the problem! We should open our doors for every other immigrant other than muslims, they will rise to power through their numbers and they will put their boots on our necks and the necks of our children and grandchildren. We are committing suicide and committing genocide for our descendants to come by letting in muslim immigrants into any of our western countries.