by Michael Nugent on August 4, 2018
Yet again Ireland is to hold a Presidential election that excludes conscientious atheists as candidates, as in order to take office we would have to swear a religious oath that is in our Constitution. This would force us to dissemble about our beliefs, and breaches our human right to freedom of conscience and belief.
The oath that the new President must swear is:
“In the presence of Almighty God, I do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will maintain the Constitution of Ireland and uphold its laws, that I will fulfil my duties faithfully and conscientiously in accordance with the Constitution and the law, and that I will dedicate my abilities to the service and welfare of the people of Ireland. May God direct and sustain me.”
If instead, in order to become President, the Constitution required that a winning candidate had to swear that there is no God, everybody would immediately realise that this would be a breach of their rights. But there is a blind spot when the discrimination is the other way around.
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by Michael Nugent on July 18, 2018
Atheist Ireland welcomes the published wording of the proposed amendment of the Constitution on around 25 October to repeal the offence of blasphemy.
Atheist Ireland will be meeting this afternoon with officials in the Department of Justice, to clarify any technical or logistical questions that we have.
We will then commence our fourteen-week campaign in support of repealing the offence. We have already held an initial planning meeting in Galway with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland, who also support repeal.
We support the right of everybody to hold their religious or nonreligious beliefs, and to have their safety as individuals protected by the law. We also support the right of everybody to criticise the content of religious or nonreligious beliefs.
If you would like to help with our campaign, please email us at humanrights@atheist.ie.
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by Michael Nugent on July 15, 2018
Twenty years ago this weekend, my wife Anne and I were in Paris to watch the 1998 World Cup final. It remains the culmination of my football-watching life. Nothing since has matched the scale of the atmosphere of seeing the inspired French defeat the magical Brazilians before a passionate home crowd to capture the world’s biggest sporting prize.
Our day had two unexpected moments. Traveling across on the Eurostar train, we were woken from our snoozing by a loud Scottish voice asking about tickets. I assumed it was a ticket inspector. It was a drunk Tommy Docherty, the former Manchester United manager. He wanted to watch the final somewhere in Paris, and was optimistically asking passengers if they had spare tickets.
I wore a nostalgia-trip outfit of my plain white early seventies Leeds shirt with the blue-stitched owl badge, topped off with my old red-and-white Bohemians scarf. That outfit caused the French police to search me at the railway station, and when I caught up with my wife Anne she was sitting on the ground, chatting to former England World Cup winner Nobby Stiles about his visits to Dublin. Anne photographed Nobby autographing my match programme.
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by Michael Nugent on July 11, 2018
The Education (Admissions to Schools) Bill has now passed in the Dail. From September the vast majority of schools will no longer be able to discriminate in entry on the grounds of religion. However, minority religious schools can still continue to discriminate as they still have exemptions from equality laws.
Atheist Ireland has been campaigning for ten years to remove this religious discrimination, since we were founded in 2008. We have raised it repeatedly with the Irish Government, at the United Nations, and with other human rights regulatory bodies. We therefore welcome part but not all of this Bill.
Atheist Ireland will continue to campaign to remove all religious discrimination in publicly funded schools in Ireland, in the four areas of our Schools Equality PACT — Patronage, Access, Curriculum, and Teaching. It is essential that all four of these areas are tackled simultaneously. This requires amendment of the Education Act and other Acts.
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