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Referendum-watch - Remove "blasphemy" from the Constitution?

24

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 11,813 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    You should see the AH thread on this, everyone's favourite ultramontanist troll has arrived.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,113 ✭✭✭shruikan2553


    I wont have enough popcorn to last me until the end of this. Seems much like the children argument for SSM, the blasphemy side are going to run with the "PC gone mad" angel because they cant think of anything else.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,913 ✭✭✭Absolam


    "worse than bedfellows" is quite a strange turn of phrase. Is she saying that being praised by Pakistan is worse than being allied with them? That seems a bit silly... if not quite as silly as Bannons assertion that preventing people from blaspheming preserves the rights of citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions, when it would, on the face of it, appear to do the exact opposite....


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    robindch wrote: »
    Interesting challenge, but I'm not sure that my mind is bendy enough to "choose to believe" something.
    Now hold on jest a cotton-pickin’ minute!

    This particular line of discussion was started by you, in post #9:
    robindch wrote: »
    . . . Then, new legislation is likely to be brought forward in the general area of "incitement to hatred" - I can't recall in much detail what Ireland have in this area already, but countries do limit free speech in those terms, specifically hatred based upon race, ethnicity, sexuality, physical attributes etc. Incitement to religious hatred should be viewed at least a differently since religion is (supposed to be) something you choose and can change, not an innate attribute like ethnicity, race etc which you don't and can't.
    Now I’m confused. Are you:

    (a) changing your position, or

    (b) saying that some people can choose their beliefs, but you’re not one of them, but the fact that some people can is grounds for treating incitement with respect to belief differently from incitement with respect to ethnicity, etc, or

    (c) saying that in reality we can’t choose our beliefs, but the fact that we are supposed to be able to choose them is grounds for treating incitement with respect to belief differently from incitement with respect to ethnicity, etc, or

    (d) saying something else, or

    (e) saying two inconsistent things, and damn the consequences?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,386 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Now I’m confused.
    Not half as confused as I am as I can't immediately see a link between the two, at least not on a first glance.

    Pray, clarify!


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  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    robindch wrote: »
    Not half as confused as I am as I can't immediately see a link between the two, at least not on a first glance.

    Pray, clarify!
    Well, in your earlier post you said that religion is supposed to be something that we choose, and can change, and you seemed to suggest - my apologies if I have picked this up wrongly - that there was enough substance in this supposition that it justified treating religion differently from gender or ethnicity in incitement legislation.

    But in your later post you seem to deny that you yourself can choose a religious belief.

    There seems to me a tension there. If you can't choose a religious belief, to what extent is religion a choice? And if its not a choice why, in the context of hate speech, would we handle it any differently from gender or ethnicity?


  • Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,780 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Well, in your earlier post you said that religion is supposed to be something that we choose, and can change...
    Isn't that objectively true? People choose and change religions all the time.
    But in your later post you seem to deny that you yourself can choose a religious belief.
    And lots of religious people feel the same way: they can't imagine choosing not to believe what they do.

    I can't realistically see myself choosing to believe anything religious in the future, but I can't say it definitely won't happen. The question then, is: are your religious beliefs something you choose, or something that's inherent to you? The former seems more likely to me.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Isn't that objectively true? People choose and change religions all the time. And lots of religious people feel the same way: they can't imagine choosing not to believe what they do.

    I can't realistically see myself choosing to believe anything religious in the future, but I can't say it definitely won't happen. The question then, is: are your religious beliefs something you choose, or something that's inherent to you? The former seems more likely to me.
    But there is a tension here; is it meaningful to say that you choose the religious beliefs you have and at the same time to say that you couldn't choose different religious beliefs? If you believe A and assert that you could not choose to believe alternatives B, C or D, in what sense is your belief in A a choice?


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,764 ✭✭✭✭keane2097


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Isn't that objectively true? People choose and change religions all the time. And lots of religious people feel the same way: they can't imagine choosing not to believe what they do.

    I can't realistically see myself choosing to believe anything religious in the future, but I can't say it definitely won't happen. The question then, is: are your religious beliefs something you choose, or something that's inherent to you? The former seems more likely to me.

    I don't think it's clear that it's the subject of conscious choice at all.

    As I mentioned above, you could try the experiment of choosing to believe in Jesus for the rest of the day?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    I don't believe your religious views are something you can change, no more than you can change your gender.

    I was a committed catlick from age five (when I was the nerdy little fellow who answered all the bish's questions when he came to visit) to about 18, when I went to college. Both before and after I have been an atheist (before because I wasn't yet indoctrinated, after because I grew up and stopped believing). So you can change your religion, just as you can change the team you support or your favourite musician, because it is simply following a human created organisation.

    As I said to a previous post, this one is also full of derp.


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  • Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,780 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    But there is a tension here; is it meaningful to say that you choose the religious beliefs you have and at the same time to say that you couldn't choose different religious beliefs? If you believe A and assert that you could not choose to believe alternatives B, C or D, in what sense is your belief in A a choice?
    Let's move away from religion for a bit, and talk about beliefs in general.

    For a time, people believed that the earth was the centre of the universe. As evidence to the contrary was gathered, people were persuaded otherwise, and believed that the earth orbited the Sun.

    If you were to ask someone who had been taught from childhood that the earth was the centre of the universe whether they could ever believe otherwise, they would probably say that no, they couldn't choose to change their beliefs. If you then presented them with compelling evidence, they could be persuaded to believe otherwise.

    Did they choose to believe in a geocentric universe? Did they subsequently choose to stop believing in it? Maybe not.

    But is their belief somehow intrinsic? Definitely not.

    Perhaps the question of whether or not it's a choice is too simplistic.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Sure, beliefs in general can change. I think we can all agree on that.

    Scientific beliefs, as you point out, can change in response to new evidence. But just to run with scientific beliefs for a moment, you do get people who, faced with the same evidence, arrive at different beliefs - you get scientific disagreements. Usually this is because the evidence is ambiguous or incomplete. And in those cases, where beliefs A and B can both be reconciled with the evidence, can we say that adopting A over B is a choice?

    Or, consider beliefs about non-scientific questions - ethical beliefs, say, or political allegiances, or judgments about artistic or literary matters. Do we choose those?

    And the question which everyone is studiously avoiding - especially you, Robin, since you introduced it but have since resisted all blandishments to discuss it further - why does this matter in the present context? Is is true that beliefs can change, and it may or may not be fair to call changing beliefs a choice, but why is any of this relevant? Why would incitement to hatred on the basis of a malleable characteristic be any less objectionably than incitement to hatred on the basis of an immutable one?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭Banbh


    One is incitement to hate certain people and the other isn't.

    Does anyone have an inkling of what the wording is likely to be in the referendum. As I recall, that Constitutional farce was plugging a much more restrictive form of law than the unenforceable blasphemy one. If the Minister comes up with some new formula, other than a simple removal, we are in for another divisive debate.

    We'll know on Tuesday anyway.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    What I don't understand is why the perceived need for an "incitement to religious hatred clause". It is already covered by the country's perfectly adequate incitement to hatred law which states in the first section that:
    “hatred” means hatred against a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community or sexual orientation;

    It is already specifically catered for under the law. At best this thinking is an example of unnecessary redundancy to throw a sop to a minority (the committed religious are most definitely a minority in Ireland), where the equivalence in relation to theft would be to have the normal prohibitions against all thefts in one law while the next law will specifically mention the "stealing of valuable jewellry" as a specific offence. But a worse and, in my opinion, more likely interpretation is that the government are leaving the "religious hatred" bit in because they are either too lilly-livered or too tied to the church, still, to come out and openly declare the state to be secular, and are trying in every case to protect the unearned privliges of religion (specifically catholicism) in the constitution, which is a disservice to the people of the country, and frankly borders on treason, by having our national rights document beholden to a foreign power.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    In the real world, we don;t have to speculate about motives the government mighty have for proposing a constitutional reference to incitement to hatred. If they do propose it - and we don't yet know that they will - it will be because that is what the Constitutional Convention has recommended, along with the recommendation to remove the reference to blasphemy. The Constitutional Convention doesn't really count as a foreign power, and implementing its recommendations is unlikely to be widely regarded as bordering on treason.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    As you well know, the foreign power referred to is the Vatican pretend-state.

    And screw the constitutional convention tbh, they decided that separation of church and state wasn't really that important but chose to discuss other topics which received far fewer representations from the public. Yes, I made a representation to it on the separation of church and state.

    They are supposedly representative of the general public, but in reality many working people and parents chose/were forced to opt out of it, and there was a sizeable contingent of politicians added in just in case the hoi polloi got notions above themselves. They have no mandate from the public and no authority.

    The amendment had better be a simple deletion. We should be reducing the special pleading on behalf of religion in our constition, not maintaining or increasing it.

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭Banbh


    The Convention was a veil for the Government to hide behind. It only recommended removing the word blasphemy from the Constitution, not the concept.

    "Rather than removing the offence altogether, the members voted by a margin of 53 to 38 to replace it with a general provision to include incitement to religious hatred which would protect religious minorities." - The Journal.

    The phrase 'religious hatred' is open to several interpretations. Is it hatred of religion, or of people who practice a religion or hatred by a religious person? I am after all subjected to religious hatred for my opposition to religion but this is not what they are planning on changing.

    I read somewhere that the wording would be available from next Tuesday but cannot find that reference.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,993 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Why would incitement to hatred on the basis of a malleable characteristic be any less objectionably than incitement to hatred on the basis of an immutable one?
    This idea generally seems to stem from the acceptance that said characteristic is "wrong", but if it can't be changed, then just accept the person, don't hate them, but try to forgive them. It seems like a quasi-religious sort of morality, in that there is a moralistic judgement going on. So in the case of homosexuality, it is supposedly less hateful if this is not actually a "lifestyle choice".
    But what if someone could change their skin colour or their sexuality, would it be any more acceptable for others to incite hatred against them? I don't think so.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    Banbh wrote: »
    The phrase 'religious hatred' is open to several interpretations. Is it hatred of religion, or of people who practice a religion or hatred by a religious person? I am after all subjected to religious hatred for my opposition to religion but this is not what they are planning on changing.

    Hatred of religion is my religion, I demand that the state vindicate my rights :p

    When you legislate to give favours for something as vague and frankly stupid as religion, there's just no end to the recursive dumbness.

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Hatred of religion is my religion, I demand that the state vindicate my rights :p

    When you legislate to give favours for something as vague and frankly stupid as religion, there's just no end to the recursive dumbness.
    In the interests of keeping the discussion at least marginally connected with reality, existing Irish discrimination legislation deals on a uniform basis with discrimination between people having different religious beliefs, and between people having religious beliefs and those not having religious beliefs.

    In other words, religion doesn't get any favours. The non-religious enjoy the same protection as the religious. And presumably any "incitement to hatred" legislation would be framed in a similar way.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭Banbh


    In other words, religion doesn't get any favours. The non-religious enjoy the same protection as the religious.
    I assume you don't live in Ireland and know little or nothing of its Constitution, laws, educational system.

    If you meant that comment solely in the context of the blasphemy laws then you are also very wide of the mark. The very existence of anti-blasphemy or anti-'religious hatred' legislation sets religions up as entities requiring state protection. There is no creed or belief system of non-religion - just plain citizenship.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,386 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Clare Daly on removing prayer from the Dail:

    http://claredaly.ie/saying-prayers/#more-4174


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,573 ✭✭✭Nick Park


    Banbh wrote: »
    If you meant that comment solely in the context of the blasphemy laws then you are also very wide of the mark. The very existence of anti-blasphemy or anti-'religious hatred' legislation sets religions up as entities requiring state protection. There is no creed or belief system of non-religion - just plain citizenship.

    No, anti-religious hatred laws are proposed to protect individuals with shared views, not entities.

    So, for example, under such laws it should still be OK to say, "I hate the Catholic Church (or any other such institution), I think it is bad for society and look forward to the day when it ceases to exist."

    But if you were to say, "I hate Catholics, I think they are bad for society and I look forward to the day when they are all dead" then you would be definitely into the area of hatred - and the kind of hatred that tends to promote violence.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,573 ✭✭✭Nick Park


    When you legislate to give favours for something as vague and frankly stupid as religion, there's just no end to the recursive dumbness.

    Thankfully we live in western Europe rather than North Korea. Here we tend to see the freedom to hold a religious (or non-religious) belief without being subjected to hate speech as a basic human right rather than a favour.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭Banbh


    I think you will find, Nick, that the laws will be similar to those elsewhere so that it will be the religion or its teachings that will be protected.

    For example, "Mohamed was a paedophile" is not taken as a comment on the historical figure but as an attack on Islam and yet "Marx ran a crack house in Baden-baden" is not considered an attack on scientific socialism.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Banbh wrote: »
    I assume you don't live in Ireland and know little or nothing of its Constitution, laws, educational system.

    If you meant that comment solely in the context of the blasphemy laws then you are also very wide of the mark. The very existence of anti-blasphemy or anti-'religious hatred' legislation sets religions up as entities requiring state protection. There is no creed or belief system of non-religion - just plain citizenship.
    No, I don't mean that in the context of the blasphemy laws. I mean it in completely the opposite context.

    The proposal here, remember, is that the blasphemy law be repealed and the reference to blasphemy in the Constitution, be deleted, and that they should be replaced with a Constitutional provision, and a law, dealing with incitement to hatred on grounds which include, but are not limited to, religion. As I understand it, the idea is that the new measures would criminalise incitment to hatred on the grounds of religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. We won't know for sure the precise scope of the new measures until detailed proposals are published.

    Right. Hotblack objects to this, in so far as it deals with religion, on the basis that it is a proposal to to "give favours for something as vague and frankly stupid as religion". But if the prohibition applies equally to incitement to hatred on the grounds of someone's religious belief and incitment to hatred on the grounds of someone's lack of religious belief, there will be no favours being given to religion - irreligion will receive exactly the same protection. And we have good reason to think that the prohibition may well apply in this way, since existing anti-discrimination legislation does apply this way. The existing Equal Treatment deals with discrimination on (among other grouns) the "religion ground". And the "religion ground" is defined in such a way that discriminating against somebody because he lacks a religious belief is illegal in the same circumstances in which discriminating against somebody because he has a religious belief that you disagree with would be illegal. No favours for religion there.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    The proposal here, remember, is that the blasphemy law be repealed and the reference to blasphemy in the Constitution, be deleted, and that they should be replaced with a Constitutional provision, and a law, dealing with incitement to hatred on grounds which include, but are not limited to, religion.

    Why is a constitutional provision necessary?
    If we have learned anything from the 8th amendment debacle, it is that writing legislation into the constitution is a very, very bad idea and bound to produce regret later. Especially when it's intended to prevent the Oireachtas from having to make a hard decision about a contentious issue.

    This is really nothing more than a feel-good sop to the religious lobby in the hope they won't mobilise against the amendment.

    We already have legislation covering this.
    “hatred” means hatred against a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community or sexual orientation;

    If that is regarded as inadequate then other legislative measures can be brought. There is already an explicit right in the constitution allowing the state to regulate free speech when necessary in the public interest. There is no need to remove one measure pandering to religion in the constitution and replace it with another.

    As I understand it, the idea is that the new measures would criminalise incitment to hatred on the grounds of religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. We won't know for sure the precise scope of the new measures until detailed proposals are published.

    See above.

    Right. Hotblack objects to this, in so far as it deals with religion, on the basis that it is a proposal to to "give favours for something as vague and frankly stupid as religion".

    What's stupid about it is that (like the RSA and driving licence applications allowing religious headgear) it gets the state involved in passing judgement on what is a 'valid' religion and what is not.
    I can set up a religion, who is to say that it's not as valid as any other?
    Cue the appeals to populism and tradition, saying that 'real' religions have been around a long (undefined) time and have a lot (undefined) of followers. So now the state is giving special rights to some people professing a religion, but not others, on entirely arbitrary grounds.

    But if the prohibition applies equally to incitement to hatred on the grounds of someone's religious belief and incitment to hatred on the grounds of someone's lack of religious belief, there will be no favours being given to religion - irreligion will receive exactly the same protection. And we have good reason to think that the prohibition may well apply in this way, since existing anti-discrimination legislation does apply this way. The existing Equal Treatment deals with discrimination on (among other grouns) the "religion ground". And the "religion ground" is defined in such a way that discriminating against somebody because he lacks a religious belief is illegal in the same circumstances in which discriminating against somebody because he has a religious belief that you disagree with would be illegal. No favours for religion there.

    Nonsense. I can't claim that because I am an atheist, some guy claiming that god exists is blaspheming against my beliefs.
    If the current law applied equally to religion and non-religion then John Waters, David Quinn and others could be in rather a lot of trouble indeed, as they have openly denigrated the morals and character of non-believers as a group simply because they do not believe.

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    Nick Park wrote: »
    Thankfully we live in western Europe rather than North Korea. Here we tend to see the freedom to hold a religious (or non-religious) belief without being subjected to hate speech as a basic human right rather than a favour.

    Re: Vague-
    See my reply to Peregrinus above. Like the old saw about pornography and a US judge, are judges to know what is a 'valid' religious belief 'when they see it'? How do you think legislators should define it, if they can define it at all?

    Re: Stupid-
    Religions can't all be true and many openly and directly contradict each other. That doesn't make them or their followers stupid, but it is stupid to legislate against blasphemy when nobody knows which, if any, religion is true.

    Blasphemy is not the same thing as incitement to hatred. I don't think anyone is seeking US First Amendment-style protection for hate groups like WBC and neo-nazis, but that doesn't mean that an idea should receive special protection simply because it is a religious idea.

    Please substantiate your claim that all of Western Europe has blasphemy laws. also if you would clarify the relevance of North Korea to a discussion on the Irish constitution it'd be great.

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,573 ✭✭✭Nick Park


    Re: Vague-
    See my reply to Peregrinus above. Like the old saw about pornography and a US judge, are judges to know what is a 'valid' religious belief 'when they see it'? How do you think legislators should define it, if they can define it at all?

    Re: Stupid-
    Religions can't all be true and many openly and directly contradict each other. That doesn't make them or their followers stupid, but it is stupid to legislate against blasphemy when nobody knows which, if any, religion is true.

    Blasphemy is not the same thing as incitement to hatred. I don't think anyone is seeking US First Amendment-style protection for hate groups like WBC and neo-nazis, but that doesn't mean that an idea should receive special protection simply because it is a religious idea.

    Please substantiate your claim that all of Western Europe has blasphemy laws. also if you would clarify the relevance of North Korea to a discussion on the Irish constitution it'd be great.

    I think we're talking at cross-purposes here. I am vehemently opposed to anti-blasphemy laws.

    I was referring to legislation against hate speech. The relevance of North Korea is that it is only such crackpot regimes that would think protection from hate speech is a favour towards either religious people or those who advocate atheism.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    Agreement!!!

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



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