Bid to repeal blasphemy law is a stalking horse
EVEN in a country where voters have been asked to change the Constitution three dozen times in less than 80 years, holding a referendum to delete a meaningless reference to blasphemy seems more than a little pointless.
Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan clearly doesn’t think so. Announcing plans this week to hold the referendum, he said: “In terms of Ireland’s international reputation, this is an important step.”
Underlining the weight the Government puts on the move, Mr Flanagan went on to say that “by removing this provision from our Constitution, we can send a strong message to the world that laws against blasphemy do not reflect Irish values and that we do not believe such laws should exist”.
The truth is, of course, the world won’t even notice. An obscure and obsolete provision of the Constitution of Ireland is little discussed abroad, I’m afraid to tell Mr Flanagan.
The referendum will, of course, be an easy win for the Government – no credible person or institution will oppose it. When then justice minister Dermot Ahern moved to review the crime of blasphemy by placing it onto a fresh statutory footing in 2009, there was amusement in religious circles.
Journalists at the time scoured the country trying to find a bishop or priest who would speak in favour of Mr Ahern’s plan to fine blasphemers up to €100,000. They couldn’t find anyone because it was not something the Church was or is remotely interested in.
The minister protested he was obliged to make blasphemy punishable under the law since the Constitution prescribed it as a crime – this was despite the fact the Supreme Court had rendered the provision meaningless more than a decade before.
Blasphemy, of course, was originally a tool designed by the British authorities to protect the dominance of the established Church of Ireland.
One of the most famous trials in Irish history was a hapless Catholic priest who inadvertently burnt a Protestant version of the Bible in the 1980s. Even he was found not guilty and his prosecution at the time was widely viewed as banal and petty by the newspapers.
The real challenge for the Government will be getting voters to turn out to cast their ballot on what they know is a meaningless referendum. That being said, it would be easy to dismiss the move as mere virtue signalling by a Government determined to demonstrate its modern credentials to anyone who is interested. What if the plan to remove the reference to blasphemy is really a stalking horse for a much wider war on the rights of people of religious faith and their institutions?
Take Article 42 of the Constitution, for example, which deals with education.
It acknowledges “the primary and natural educator of the child is the family” and recognises the inalienable right of parents to send their child to a school with an ethos in keeping with the family’s values.
It further adds that “the State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State”.
This is currently the main bulwark against those who want to dismantle the current denominational model of education which prioritises parental choice ahead of a one-size-fits-all model of State-controlled schools.
Certainly, there needs to be a lot more non-denominational schools, but as the phenomenal success of Educate Together shows, this can be done without obliterating parental
It’s not hard to see a Government, fresh from a victory in a faux battle between Church and State over blasphemy, try to overreach into fundamental rights around education and religion
rights. Or take Article 44, which deals directly with religion. It affirms the separation of Church and State by insisting “every religious denomination shall have the right to manage its own affairs, own, acquire and administer property, movable and immovable, and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes”.
THIS prevents the Government from seizing the private property of religious organisations at will and also stands in the way of vocal campaigners who are calling for the Church to be “kicked out” of education and healthcare.
The current political mood in Ireland is fairly hostile towards religion in general and Catholicism in particular.
Solidarity-People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith recently told the Dáil it was high time to put the Church in the “dustbin of history”. Some of the other interventions from politicians when it comes to the role of faith in education and healthcare – particularly the proposed new National Maternity Hospital – have swung from hysterical to plain barmy conspiracy theories about nuns controlling the country.
In such an atmosphere, it’s not hard to see a Government, fresh from a victory in a faux battle between Church and State over blasphemy, try to overreach into fundamental rights around education and religion.
And what of the preamble to the Constitution which opens with the words: “In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred…”?
It has long been a bugbear of aggressive secularists who see it as a pious throwback to the 1930s.
The outcome of such a referendum would be a fascinating barometer of just how deeply the vast majority of people who still describe themselves as Christian feel connected to the religious roots of the country.
But in the meantime, if we must make the effort to vote on blasphemy, I’ll be voting to delete.
God can look after himself and doesn’t need the law to protect him from comedians and cartoonists.
I hope the secular piety of political correctness is equally robust and we won’t need the modern equivalent of blasphemy laws to protect the feelings of the easily offended.