Opinion: Ireland: The island of saints and blasphemers?

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Republic of Ireland is being ridiculed, and rightly so, for enacting a law that punishes blasphemy with fines of up to $35,000. As my Irish mother would put it, ‘Mother of God! They might as well outlaw alcoholism.’

The defense for this retro legislation is that some effect must be given to this language in Ireland’s Constitution: ‘The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent material is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.’ An article in The New York Times counsels against smugness on the part of Americans, noting that ‘six American states -- Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming -- still have laws against blasphemy on the books, although they are only occasionally enforced in the 21st century.’ (Pennsylvania also has a law against ‘desecrating a venerated object,’ which means no tearing of Terrible Towels.)

It’s easy to trash the Irish for this silly law, but taboos against blasphemy have had something of a comeback lately. In Britain, some multiculturalists argued that instead of abolishing blasphemy laws Parliament should enlarge them to encompass slander against the prophet Muhammad. In a similar vein, Britain’s Labor government coupled its anti-terrorism measures with a sop to Muslims, a proposal to outlaw ‘insulting words or behavior’ aimed at religion. The House of Lords changed ‘insulting’ to ‘threatening,’ and added this disclaimer:

I’m loath to suggest that Ireland look to London for guidance, but God knows the Lords are right.

-- Michael McGough