If this was published in Ireland, I might have just committed a crime. According to a recent clarification of their blasphemy laws, someone would be guilty of blasphemy if:
"he or she publishes or utters 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."
This is seriously, seriously stupid. An Irish atheist society has challenged it in the obvious way, publishing quotes from Jesus, Mark Twain and Ian Paisley among others which could all be interpreted as blasphemous and criminal under the new interpretation of the law. In fact, if combined with this sort of decision to protect non-religions, or with the utterly nonsensical decision from Grainger vs. Nicholson than environmental beliefs should be protected under religious discrimination laws, it could make perfectly sensible, even morlally necessary decisions illegal.
It's a stupid law. I'm not sure if that qualifies as blasphemous
Monday, 4 January 2010
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This *sort of* reminds me of the German law that makes it illegal to deny the Holocaust... although given how terrible that was, you can *soft of* understand why they do it.. some sort of PR thing, perhaps...
Fining somebody 25,000 Euros for uttering ANY insulting comment about ANY religion is really strange... Is it insulting to a Hindu for a devout Catholic to say "there is only one God and he is the Christian God"? Also, how do you measure "insulting"; offense is taken, not given, so you could take much more offense to something than was intended.
But anyway, to pledge my allegiance to the cause I will say only this: thetans suck.
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