Good Lord... now Scots blasphemy laws face axe

BREACHING them was once enough to put a bookseller in jail – and a medical student’s neck in the hangman’s noose.

But now a fresh bid has been launched to abolish Scotland’s blasphemy laws, 174 years after they were last enforced.

Campaigners including the Humanist Society Scotland are to put their case to MSPs next week, following a petition lodged in July.

The petition claimed it was ‘unfathomable’ that the Scottish Government had failed to axe the ancient laws, despite them being scrapped south of the Border.

But those opposing abolition claim the move is just a ‘cynical attempt’ to take religion out of civil and political life.

The laws ban actions such as denying the existence of God or saying ‘impious or profane things’ about God, according to the petition submitted by Mark McCabe.

In his petition, Mr McCabe said: ‘It seems unfathomable that Scotland still has this archaic crime when the rest of Great Britain has abolished it, and all that theoretically stands between a person and prosecution is the good grace of the police and prosecutors.’

A note of support for the petititon has been submitted by the Humanist Society Scotland to the Scottish parliament’s Public Petitions committee.

It states: ‘Scotland is increasingly being left behind other European nations who have scrapped blasphemy laws. These laws were scrapped in England and Wales in 2008, Iceland and Norway in 2015, Malta in 2016 and Denmark in 2017.

‘While not used in Scotland in modern times, having such laws makes it more difficult to call on other countries to scrap their blasphemy laws where they are used to persecute and even execute individuals.’

But the Catholic Church questioned the abolitionists’ motives in opposing a law last used to prosecute a bookseller in 1843 and hang a medical student in 1697.

A spokesman said: ‘Evidently, there is little concern in wider society that people of any faith, or none, could face prosecution under this historic law; rather it appears to be a cynical attempt to further remove any vestige of religion from civic and political life.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said last night: ‘We are aware of the current parliamentary petition on the common law of blasphemy, and will carefully consider any issues raised with us.’

A spokesman for the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland said: ‘I think that Scotland should have Christian blasphemy laws, and those laws should be enforced.’