Irish blasphemy law

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... phemy-laws

I think it's pretty obvious that the Justice Minister of Ireland is a mingebag. The best part: He's a homophobe himself.

It makes me wonder which gods one is permitted to violate. Do they issue a preferred list? And can one make up a god to avenge an enemy who habitually uses a set of words when angry or even says "ouch" when hurt and you can claim the great god Ouch is violated when you speak her name. There are all sorts of interesting possibilities.

I'd never have expected this from Ireland o.O ....

As far as random inividuals go, this would be like j-walking. The cops wouldn't reinforce it. It's main effect would probably be in controling the media.

Its a brain-dead notion. I'd have to also wonder which religion would be requesting this kind of wall the most? I ask that on a purely rhetorical basis as I can pretty certain as to exactly who and why.

It's not a question as to which religion is stupider than another. There is plenty to go around. It's a question as to why so many dumb politicians pay attention to them.

Most wouldn't want it.

I'm not sure if it was made law. If it was, then most wanted it.

You sure about that? I look at things happening in the U.S. with judicial activism and it can bypass the people pretty effectively, the committee system with Congress can restrict the legislature as well quite effectively on options. Ireland sounds like they have similar problems but more on the scope of England - we've still lucked out and dodged the bullet.

That and I meant that most religions would not want it.

Where do you get the authority to speak for most religions?

I suppose I can sleep pretty easy not worrying about that question. To mention an idea or thought that seems to go around a lot with the military and I'd known enough people serving in the military with like mind to get a sense that they fit in with the majority - I don't think I'd worry about needing to be a Seargent or Lietanent tmyself o earn my right to share the thought.

That aside though - most rational and thinking people don't want blasphemy laws curtailing speech, most people both believe in some form of higher power and believe that freedoms should not be restricted in a legal sense to honor that power, I think I can rest pretty easily on this statement.

If you can sit smugly on that attitude there is nor further sense in my trying to talk to you.

What the law says is that if enough religious people are offended by something you say, then it's blasphemy. How many is enough is kinda vague, but it seems clear that it's only the big religions that will be able to prosecute under this law. The fact that many of the central tenets of Islam must count as blasphemy from the point of view of a Catholic & vice-versa is simply ignored, because the whole point is only to silence criticism of religion.



Except that the people enforcing the laws wouldn't be the cops but the mobs of religious people who are offended by whatever it is you have said & have decided to bring a case against you. How this will actually play out in the courts will be interesting, given that the European Supreme Court has said that it can't work out what the legal meaning of the term blasphemy could possibly be.



Well, these types of laws in Western countries these days seem to be mostly used by Muslims, but Ireland doesn't have a very large Muslim population (although I think various Muslim leaders have said they support the law since it was announced). The Catholic Church has kept very quiet about it, but then no one takes them seriously any more because they protected hundreds of known child rapists for decades. This law isn't being brought in because any religious group has campaigned for it.



It hasn't been brought in just yet, but the government hasn't brought forward this law because it thinks anybody wants it. A legal review was carried out of the Irish constitution to see what needed to be changed. We have a pretty good constitution but it was written in the 1920s by Catholics & so it contains various absurd things, such as an affirmation that the woman's place is in the home. Also, the government can't just change the constitution, everyone has to vote on it in a referendum before any changes can be made. One of the main recommendations of this constitutional review was that something be done about the blasphemy clause in the constitution: either bring in a blasphemy law like the constitution demands, or remove the blasphemy clause. The report recommended that the blasphemy clause be removed. The government decided it would just bring in a stupid law so that it doesn't have to risk losing any old Catholic voters by starting a public debate about blasphemy.

Its a really strange phenomena, something like if you go far enough left on the polical spectrum the snake seems to eat its tail. People would have to either be ignorant of, not care that, or even like the idea that this ultimately gives the most power to the least common denominator in setting the flow of and censoring public discourse.

This isn't something that's being brought in by a left leaning government, but by a centre-right government. It isn't like in England or Canada where left-leaning governments with an ideological commitment to multiculturalism have brought in laws to protect religious opinions; it's being brought in in order to bring the legislature into line with the constitution. Our current government is probably going to get kicked out at the next election & one of the few constituences they will be able to count on to vote for them will be old Catholics, so the government desperately wants to avoid a loud public debate about religion where it will be forced to take a side - that's why it's bringing in the law rather than changing the constitution.

This isn't an example of the left capitulating to religious extremism. It's an example of politicians making a cynical decision based on nothing other than a calculation of how many votes they stand to lose.

The really annoying thing is that Dermot Ahern, the relevant minister, is, as the op very exactly put it, 'a mingebag', so rather than simply be cynical & cobble together a half-assed law that just plugs the constitutional hole for a while, he has proposed a law that allows any large enough gang of idiots who happen to be religious to prosecute someone for voicing an opinion. The only onus on them is to prove that their victim's opinion offends against the dictates of their faith, it is irrelevant if these dictates are demonstrably false or blatantly nonsensical. Also, his original proposition was that the fine could be as high as €100,000, under pressure he reduced that to €25,000, still an absurdly high sum.

The left come out of this looking a good deal better, in that the Irish Labour party say if they get in they'll surround the law with enough qualifications & list enough exceptions that it will be pretty irrelevant. Not as good as simply having a referendum to try & remove the blasphemy clause from the constitution, but better than the other gang.

So in fearing a debate and having to take a side they feel that, comparatively, passing an anti-blasphemy law should smooth things over? I guess I can kinda see the logic there . If our right did that, even as a conservative myself....I don't even want to think about it.