That bit of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!

You’d almost forget it was happening. However running alongside our presidential election we have a referendum on the subject of blasphemy. Why in the name of God with Brexit on the horizon are we talking about blasphemy?

It goes back to 1937. When the constitution was enacted a provision was made to ban blasphemy. Blasphemy is the deliberate act of causing outrage by insulting God. In Saudi Arabia it is punishable by death, as are most other offences in Saudi Arabia. For over 70 years the provision was not backed up by legislation until Dermot Ahern as Minister for Justice thought with the economy about to tank, banning blasphemy legally for the first time in Ireland was the way to go. Ireland had the dubious record of being cited by some countries with shocking human rights records in their defence of their laws on blasphemy as a result. 

Before I go any further let me say I’ll vote to remove the reference to blasphemy from the constitution.  I say that as a churchgoer that any faith which feels it needs the legal protection of the state to its view of its God is built on quicksand. After 2,000 years of Christianity and 1500 years of Islam, why is there the need to protect a view of God or to enforce that true civil law? If a comedian or a writer can cause enough outrage that thousands of years of faith are undermined, then sooner or later that faith will wither anyway.  And I don’t believe any faith is about to disappear.  The original blasphemer was executed on Good Friday 2,000 years ago because of the outrage he caused to the High Priests and Pharisees at the time.

To be fair, the Christian churches were well and truly shattered by the time,years of parody by Monty Python and the Life of Brian.  What religious fundamentalists could have gone with blasphemy if the section in the constitutional provision is retained , well your guess is as good as mine. Blasphemy legislation is a deliberate come on for anyone seeking notoriety. Should the state by its laws facilitate someone bent on seeking publicity? I don’t think so.

but not because of  Dermot Ahearn arrived on the scene with this legislation. When a law is implemented, it’d be nice to know where it leads. Religious fundamentalism cannot be legislated for either.

I doubt if Dev ever considered that in the 21^st century his constitution might have provided the grounds for fundamentalists to seek protection in Irish law for someone who questions Islam on facebook which operates out of Ireland, perhaps in Arabic? Because that is what our current law can allow. Dev might likely have raised an eyebrow if he could visualise as happened in Indonesia that a muslim running for election who called on people of other faiths to vote for him was prosecuted under blasphemy law for that speech.

Blasphemy is a Pandora’s box. I do not want to see faiths from Kinnegad to Trinidad turn our judicial system into a debating chamber where competing arguments try to out outrage one another. Once it is opened who knows where it may lead. Best to use the ballot box to keep Pandora’s box shut