Ireland Approves ''Blasphemy'' Law

- I understand that it'll now cost you €25,000 to tell the Pope to go fuck himself when you're in Ireleand......
==============================================================================
DeSwiss


http://www.atheisttoolbox.com/">The Atheist Toolbox

"She didn't have enough euros to pay her fines....."


http://thesuperjesus.wordpress.com/">''Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions.''

where free speech ... isn't.

They put Nick Griffin in jail for a while, so they'll do for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Griffin

our 1st amendment protects us from these types of laws.

i'll take liberty over civility any day o the week.

;-)

using the power of govt. to suppress it is another thing entirely. i would never want to live where the govt. gets to decide what is hateful, and what isn't, what ideas are acceptable in the public debate, and what aren't. giving govt. that power is insane. sunlight is the best disinfectant. the barrel of the govt. gun is not.

And coming from a country where the Catholic Church held an alarming degree of sway over our Governments and judiciary up until 10 or 15 years ago I'm the last one to trust the judgement of politicians or judges when it comes to defining what is hateful and offensive and what is not.

But despite all the obvious flaws I also like the idea - how it is enforced is, of course, the issue - of boundaries being set in a society, rather than there being a free for all, so that the vulnerable are afforded some degree of protection from those who spew bile (see the Nick Griffin case) designed purely to incite hate and, often, violence.

I am just a whole lot happier living in a country where right-wing hatemongers wouldn't, for one moment, be given the platform they are given in the U.S. to vent their spleen. No one in my country would be allowed broadcast a radio or TV show where, unchallenged, they endlessly spat bile all over Muslims, blacks or gays, for example, and I will forever be grateful for that.

Of course it doesn't make them or their prejudices go away, but it sets a standard. Fox News’ casual racism and homophobia doesn’t appear to cause its devotees to blink, they hear this bigotry on their TV every single day so it seems okay, normal, it reinforces their own intolerance and ignorance. It’s not okay or normal where I come from, it’s utterly unacceptable on the national airwaves or in the press. Again, that sends a message. A positive one. Those who want to preach hate can run off to StormFront, that’s their platform.

And, so far, the marginalising of the bigots has worked – despite obvious signs of racism in Ireland since immigration to the country began a few years ago none of the parties attempting to feed in to that mood has prospered at election time (see Libertas in the 2009 European Elections). The mainstream, largely liberal parties continue to dominate. The bigots weren’t silenced during that campaign, they were given plenty of airtime – but only in debates with politicians eager to challenge their prejudices. They were crushed (see the election results). If they were given their own shows, where no one would challenge them, it might have been different.

One man’s freedom of speech is another’s incitement to hatred; one man’s ‘suppression’ of opinions is another’s effort to protect minorities from being abused and threatened. I belong to the 'with freedom comes responsibility' camp. So, yes, I oppose freedom of speech if it is used to incite hatred and/or violence against any one - any one at all.

You and me come from very different cultures, from countries with very different histories, which probably explains why we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum on this. You prefer your ways, I prefer ours. Agree to differ?

i suggest people who support laws against "incitement to hatred" take a look at some of the pamphlets extant at the time of the writing of our bill of rights. incitement to hatred was quite common. free speech cannot exist w/o the right to express hateful (in the eyes of some) ideas. of course, it is about tradeoffs, and i do agree to differ. i just don't ever want to see us going down the road the UK, france , canada etc. have gone vis a vis speech.

...freedom of speech should be responsibility-free? Even if that freedom is used to incite hatred and endanger the lives of others?

We'll definitely have to agree to differ, I'll take the laws of the UK, Australia, South Africa, France, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Brazil, Canada, etc any time.

correct. you cannot have free exchange of ideas, if "hateful" ideas are prohibited. it's really that simple. i prefer freedom to govt. controlled speech. thankfully, our 1st amendment protects this freedom.

I'm off to sleep paulsby, night.

But I bet it has more to do with the Catholic and Protestant matter that still dwells within Ireland.

I still find this law to be a backwards idea and way of thinking.

Trust me.

This new 'blasphemy' bill is a joke - but it hasn't been introduced because the Government, much as I despise them, is made up of a bunch of nut-case religious bigots, honest!

Ireland's 1961 Defamation Act allowed for any one "who composes, prints or publishes any blasphemous or obscene libel" to be jailed for up to seven years. The new law means no-one guilty of blasphemy can be jailed, only fined.

The law, of course, should be scrapped, but for that to happen a referendum would need to be held because it would require a change to the constitution. Quite honestly, Ireland is so ****ed economically at the moment we'd barely have the money to fund a referendum, but more importantly the law is regarded as a joke - so there's no urgency about scrapping it. In 1999 our Supreme Court ruled that it was impossible to say "of what the offence of blasphemy consists", which effectively makes prosecutions impossible. I don't ever remember any one in my lifetime being charged with blasphemy (I could be wrong), it's a dead law.

So, it's all a mess. The only thing significant about the new law is that a jail sentence is no longer possible for any one found guilty of blasphemy....and it's unlikely any one will ever be charged.

We do things in a round-a-bout way in my country. :-)

Sorry to hear that...

"Abortion is illegal in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, unless the pregnancy is in threat of endangering the life of the woman (as differential to her health) through continuance of the pregnancy."

What does that have to do with this topic?

:)

My sister lives in Ireland now and I know they only considered it because

the control of Ireland by the RCC had ebbed --

In Italy, there was once a law that no one was permitted to laugh at a priest

walking in the street.

Obviously, obscenity laws and others like it are intended to limit discussion

-- and especially laughing at -- religious figures and of the religion itself.

That's been one of our major problems here in America with the idea that --

"We don't discuss politics or religion in polite society" -- !!!

Amazing that not until Bush/Cheney did I ever pass by a group and hear political

conversation here in America!!!

Ooops... I'll need to chalk up some euros now. Such a stupid law.

go fuck themselves. Guess it's good I live in the US lol.

There! Now go ahead and prosecute me.