On 2008 May 08, the UK's blasphemy laws were repealed. From Wikipedia1:
Until 2008 the UK still had old anachronistic blasphemy laws on its statute books. They were once thought to be abandoned to disuse in the 1970s, but they were revived in the 1990s. They only protected Christians, and were considered by activists (and Law Lords, by the 2000s) to be prejudiced, outdated and a threat to free speech. Before being abolished, they were partially overriden by Free Speech laws and European Human Rights Law.
Contents:
In the Constitutional & Administrative Law book it states that for the fifty-five years between 1922 and 1977 there were no prosecutions for blasphemous libel2. It was rightly thought and felt by all that such outdated laws were no longer usable in court. But two cases in 1979 and 1990 highlighted the fact that UK law could still uphold the anachronistic and embarrassing common law offence of "blasphemy".
"The last man to be sent to prison for blasphemy was John William Gott. In 1922 he was sentenced to nine months hard labour for comparing Jesus with a circus clown. In Scotland, there has not been a public prosecution since 1843"3. The 1843 prosecution was when bookseller Thomas Paterson was sentenced at Edinburgh High Court to 15 months in prison for selling blasphemous books4.
In 1979, 1990 and 1997 three cases highlighted the mind-boggling nonsense of the law on blasphemy:
In 1990 R. v. Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, ex parte Choudhury 3 W.L.R. 986 it was confirmed that blasphemy laws did not protect Muslims from anti-Islam blasphemy, when some British Muslims attempted to invoke the law against Salman Rushdie for his writing of "The Satanic Verses".
UK blasphemy laws only protected Christians. The Concise Law Dictionary points out that blasphemy is only valid if it affects the Christian God, Jesus Christ, the Christian Bible or the Christian Book of Common Prayer. Blasphemous libel occurs not only when hateful literature is published, "reviling" or "scurrilous", but even when "ludicrous matter" relating to Christian concepts is published. Something merely has to be "ludicrous" to Christians in order to blasphemy charges to be brought. Thankfully it was very rarely used and, from the 1990s when it made a resurgence, was loathed by the legal world itself.
It is worth pointing out again that they only protected Christians. However ridiculous this seems, it was true, since the 19th century. It was tested and confirmed in an appeal to the House of Lords. "In Lord Scarman's opinion, the law should be extended to protect the religious beliefs and feelings of non-Christians. Lord Scarman stated that: 'In an increasingly plural society such as that of modern Britain it is necessary not only to respect the differing religious beliefs and practices of all but also to protect them from scurrility, vilification, ridicule and contempt'"6.
“This view was not to prevail, however. In R v Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate ex parte Choudhury (1991), it was held that blasphemy remained confined to protection of the Christian religion as exemplified by the established Church of England. [...] That the law should offer such limited and discriminatory protection is both anachronistic and offensive to the principle of equality in a pluralistic society. The Law Commission in 1985 recommended that the offence be abolished, but the government has not acted on this recommendation.”"Constitutional & Administrative Law" by Hilaire Barnett (2002)6
The situation was worse than I have so far let on. In R. v. Lemon it was also shown that the defendant's intent didn't matter to the conviction [Bone, 2001]. In other words, if someone accidentally published something blasphemous, they could have still be tried. "The House of Lords held that there was no need to prove an intention to blaspheme, but rather that it was sufficient to prove that a blasphemous libel [...] had been published"6.
There were legal limitations to the law. When the Christian zealot, Stephen Green, attempted to bring a case against the BBC for showing Jerry Springer – the Opera, judges "said the 1968 Theatres Act prevented any prosecution for blasphemy in relation to public performances of plays and the 1990 Broadcasting Act prevented any prosecution in relation to broadcasts"7.
There have also been various other challenges by professional bodies and protests by public movements, against the blasphemy laws.
“In 2002, a deliberate and well-publicised public, repeat, reading of the poem The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name by James Kirkup took place on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square and failed to lead to any prosecution by the Director of Public Prosecutions. It suggested Jesus was gay. An earlier reading in 1977 had led to prosecution. Militant Christians tried to drown out the 2002 reading. “We have won an important victory for free speech and the right to protest”, declared human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. “No one was arrested. The police didn’t even take our names and addresses. The blasphemy law is now a dead letter. If the authorities are not prepared to enforce the law, they should abolish it”. A trial would have involved all those who read and published the poem, including several of Britain’s leading writers, academics and MPs. “The blasphemy law gives the Christian religion privileged protection against criticism and dissent. No other institution enjoys such sweeping powers to suppress the expression of opinions and ideas”, said Peter Tatchell.”
Some Muslims in 1990 and Christians all over the UK have wished to silence critics of religion. Before its abolition, the blasphemy laws were supported by various Christian lobby groups including Christian Voice and the Church of England3, although "George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said yesterday that the blasphemy laws should be axed and he believed the Church of England would not seriously oppose such a move"8.
Challenges to the blasphemy law had been made by members of parliament, human rights groups, religious representatives from many non-Church of England faiths, secularists and pressure groups. The biggest set-back was that the law was used so infrequently that hardly anyone cared that it was still there. The government said it would repeal the law when it has time to do so9. The Council of Europe has also resolved that all of Europe should take a similar stance, and repeal blasphemy laws:
“The Council of Europe passed a resolution last week calling on member states to repeal all laws relating to blasphemy. It also said that religious groups must accept that in a free society their activities and doctrines cannot be protected from criticism and open examination. [...]The resolution, which was passed with a large majority in Strasbourg, said that "criticism of religious groups should be tolerated in democratic societies." However, the council put a limit on religious criticism and freedom of opinion: it was not allowed to incite hatred, disturb the public order or be targeted at members of religious groups.
The NSS has been active in lobbying the Council of Europe on freedom of expression and our Director, Keith Porteous Wood, chaired a Council of Europe session on this topic at the French Senate as part of the process which led to this excellent outcome. Keith Porteous Wood commented: "Freedom of expression is the bedrock of democracy, indeed of our civilisation. The Council of Europe stands out among international organisations in recognising the potential damage to freedom of expression from religion and not caving in to the huge pressure for massively extended blasphemy laws. If only the United Nations and, to a lesser extent, the European Union were as far-sighted in this respect."”
National Secular Society (2007)8
In 2005 I saw that there are two possible ways to fix the blasphemy laws.
The problem with the first method is that there are hundreds of religion with all kinds of absurd, irrational and heartfelt issues that would be deemed "blasphemous". If it was possible to enforce it would lead to massive & impractical restrictions on everyone. This is especially true given that our laws apply no matter the intent, so that everyone would always be blaspheming against some facet of some religion all the time. Even if we made it so that intent to blaspheme was a requirement for conviction, it would not be right in a free society to enforce blasphemy laws for hundreds of religions upon the populace.
Clearly, abolition of the law was the only sensible path.
The legal system of England was once ruled by the Christian Church; much of "ecclesiastical law" influenced common law. "The offence of blasphemy was originally part of ecclesiastical law. In the seventeenth century, blasphemy was declared a common law offence by the Court of the King's Bench[...]. From the 16th century to the mid 19th century, blasphemy against the Christian religion was held as an offence against common law. [It was used to] to persecute atheists, Unitarians, and others"4. It used to cover all Christian denominations but in an 1838 case it was restricted to protect the "tenets and beliefs of the Church of England"3. This is because the Church of England became the established denomination of the English government, and they tolerated no other forms of Christianity and did not want to protect them.
It was used to persecute the publication of anything that questioned Christian beliefs or the Christian religion. It was an offence to question the Holy Trinity or to question that the Christian Bible was the word of God. Strict and fundamentalist Muslim countries in the present day have the same attitude towards blasphemy of their prophet Muhammad as Christians once did in Europe.
Unused for decades, the UKs blasphemy laws had come to the fore since 1979 before being abolished in 2008. Blasphemy laws were invoked when closed-minded religious bigots wanted to stifle the free speech of others, such as in R. v Lemon 1979 when a poem about Jesus was published in a gay magazine. In Pakistan they are used to, for example, block any scholarly discussion of any aspect of Muhammad's life11. The publications in question are not personal insults or hateful literature; they are not professional or political, they are largely expressive, emotional or scholarly. That blasphemy laws are used in such a way - to protect concepts from being questioned - is not only wrong and closed-minded, but undemocratic.
The final straw was that the UK's blasphemy laws only protected Christians - not Muslims or Jews - and historically only the Church of England. It was deeply prejudiced, intolerable and confusing that we still had such laws. Thankfully the European Courts, British legal community, Lobby groups and British politicians have spoken out against the blasphemy laws. Good ridance, the world is now a fairer place.
Barnett, Hilaire
"Constitutional & Administrative Law" (2002 4th ed). Originally published 1995 by Cavendish Publishing Ltd, London UK. The Amazon.co.uk links are to the 5th edition.
Bone, Sheila (Ed.)
"Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary" (2001 9th ed). First edition 1927. Published by Sweet & Maxwell Limited, London UK.
Crabtree, Vexen. "Justification of Blasphemy" (2000). Accessed 2007 Dec 16.
Kelly, David & Slapper, Gary
"The English Legal System" (2003 6th ed). First edition 1994. Published by Cavendish Publishing, London UK. The Amazon link is for the 7th edition.
Watt, Montgomery
"Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity" (1989). Published by Routledge.
By Vexen Crabtree 2008 Sep 06
Originally published 2005 Dec 18