Unity

From Unity, 16 January 2010

Media review

by W. Owl

As you would expect, the revelations about Iris Robinson over the last few days have led to the resurrection of that well-known song from The Graduate by Simon and Garfunkel. Personally, I’d like to pay a bit more attention to John Lennon’s “Imagine,” especially the line that refers to having no religion.
     I mention this on the back of a report in the Guardian by its Ireland correspondent, Henry McDonald, under the heading “Irish atheists challenge new blasphemy laws.” He writes about a new law, passed in July, that had come into force the previous day.
     According to McDonald, blasphemy in the Republic is now a crime, punishable with a fine of up to €25,000. The definition of the law states that blasphemy is “publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.”
     The Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, has said that the law was necessary because immigration had brought a growing diversity of faiths but the 1937 Constitution “extended the protection of belief only to Christians.”
     This view is not shared by Atheist Ireland, who have responded to this new law by publishing twenty-five anti-religious quotations on their web site. These include Richard Dawkins, Frank Zappa, Björk, and the Irish ex-minister Conor Cruise O’Brien.
     The chairman of Atheist Ireland, Michael Nugent, says they will challenge the law through the courts if they are charged with blasphemy. He went on to state: “This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas.” He also makes the point that “Islamic states led by Pakistan are already using the working of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.” Also that it is dangerous because it “incentives religious outrage.”
     He went on to argue that “blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.”
     No doubt some people would pick on the last word in that statement to attack Atheist Ireland, but there are those that think any criticism of religion is blasphemy.
     In reference to the scandals that rocked the Catholic church in 2009 Nugent makes the point that a blasphemy law ought to have been the last thing the Irish state should be considering.
     He could also have mentioned the state of the economy as being a wee bit more important.
     Nugent himself thinks that the published quotations are abusive and insulting, but are they any more insulting than Iris Robinson’s comments on homosexuals, especially at a time when a homophobic attack had taken place, and especially when she had embarked on an adulterous association?
     The quotation from Richard Dawkins posted by Atheist Ireland goes like this: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction, jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticide, genocide, filicidal, pestilential megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
     Well, there’s a lot to go on there—something for everybody, as they say.
     A bit heavy, some might say; but should anyone be prosecuted for saying it?
     I well remember the Reverend Alan Ecclestone from Sheffield being interviewed on Radio 2. He was unique in that he was also a member of the Communist Party. During the interview he volunteered his opinions on the “crimes” committed during the Stalin period in the Soviet Union. This definitely got the interviewer’s attention; but unfortunately for him the “red” reverend stated that it didn’t compare to the two thousand years of persecution by the Christian church.
     As you can imagine, the interview ended there.
     Were his comments blasphemous? No-one would condemn Christianity as a whole because of the actions of some of its adherents, as you would not condemn communism as a whole for the same reason.
     Atheist Ireland is to ask the Irish Government for a referendum to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Constitution.
     The Irish Government’s record on referendums is less than good, as history shows, but giving people the opportunity is no bad thing.

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