A Sceptical I

Clarifying Irish Blasphemy

August 10, 2009

Posted in: atheism, constitution, discrimination, faith, free speech, government, history, law, libel, media, politics, religion, scepticism, society

You may have heard, early last month, that Ireland has passed a new law regarding blasphemy. There also seems to be some confusion on the matter – is this a new law, making blasphemy illegal where it was previously not? Or is it perhaps a reform of an older law, which actually reduces the sanction on this offense from prison time to a fine? Either way, atheists and secularists of all stripes are up in arms, and a lot of them seem to be ignorant of the facts. When freethinkers start leaping to the defensive just from the very mention of words such as “blasphemy”, without examining the details, how can we claim the moral high ground? How are we better than fundamentalists? If we are to debate credibly, we need to be able to marshal the facts. This, in my mind, is one of the most important distinguishing aspects of the sceptical and secularist movements.

So, what are the facts in this case?

The Irish Constitution requires a law making blasphemy an offense. Such a law was not passed until 1961, but did not satisfactorily define blasphemy – this led to the 1999 Supreme Court ruling that the current law was unenforceable. Instead of amending the constitution to remove the necessity of the law, however (which would require a national referendum), it was decided that it would be easier to enact a law that was enforceable. This passed in early July.

So, in effect, blasphemy is now illegal in Ireland, and while this has apparently always been the case, it is now a cogent and enforeceable law with a specified definition and penalty (and a hefty penalty at that – up to €25,000). It will however likely not be operable until late October, due to necessary modifications in the rules of court to accommodate it. There is a significant campaign to repeal the new law, and indeed it seems that there are good reasons to consider it to be in conflict with the constitution – not to mention the European Convention on Human Rights.

All this information is available at the excellent website Blasphemy.ie, and what is presented here is intended as a summary, attempting to clarify a situation which seems to be widely misunderstood.

So what’s the bottom line here?

Blasphemy is now functionally illegal in Ireland. This is a result of recent legislation which did not introduce it as an offense but rather clarified the law to a point at which it was enforceable. This was ostensibly done to avoid the costs of a referendum – which, as mentioned, would be necessary were Ireland to alter the constitution and remove the need for a blasphemy law. But, as Padraig Reidy points out, a referendum is planned for October on the issue of the Lisbon Treaty (a generally unrelated matter) – so why not save a few Euros and combine the two? And why set the penalty for blasphemy so high? Surely if it were a token law for the sake of convention, it would warrant only a token penalty. Does this perhaps hint at an ulterior motive for enacting the new legislation?

I am clearly not in a position to comment on that possibility. Anybody who is would be gratefully welcomed if they cared to enlighten me. Suffice it to say that I have been a little disappointed by the sparse and superficial coverage this story has received – as usual, the reality is a bit more complicated.

To stay updated with this case, head to blasphemy.ie.

Mission Statement

I started this blog at the beginning of 2008, as an outlet for my sceptical musings on various topics, inspired by the examples of the Skeptoid and The Skeptic's Guide To The Universe podcasts, and Skepchick.org among many others. This is me doing my part to get the message out to as many people as possible that rationality is vitally important - especially given the increasingly vocal nature of the competition. Though the main focus of this blog will be sceptical musings about my own areas of interest, such as philosophy, science fiction, politics and ecology, I expect virtually every conceivable topic will come up at one point or another, including abstract thoughts about the value of scepticism itself. So come and join the debate.

Clarifying Irish Blasphemy

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