Voters Urged To Vote In Favour Of Removing Blasphemy Law

With all eyes on the president election, people might be forgetting that there's also a little matter of dealing with the outdated blasphemy law next week too.

Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan has called on the people to vote yes to remove the crime of blasphemy from our Constitution next week.

"We must vote yes to remove the crime of blasphemy from our Constitution," says Minister Flanagan.

The Fine Gael Minister said blasphemy has no place in the modern Constitution of a democratic society.

In the state of Ireland, blasphemy is be prohibited by Article 40.6.1.i. of the 1937 Constitution.

The common law offence of blasphemous libel, applicable only to Christianity and last prosecuted in 1855, was ruled in 1999 to be incompatible with the Constitution's guarantee of religious equality.

But, instead of just scrapping it completely, the Irish government of the time bizarrely expanded this backwards law with the offence of "publication or utterance of blasphemous matter" against any religion.

This out of touch law came to the world's attention back in 2017 when a member of the public informed made a formal complaint of blasphemy against Stephen Fry and RTÉ after Fry's 2015 appearance on Gay Byrne's programme The Meaning of Life.

In May 2017, the Garda said they would not proceed with an investigation as no injured parties had come forward and they were "unable to find a substantial number of outraged people".

“In our 2016 General Election Manifesto, as part of a package of constitutional reforms, Fine Gael promised that in Government we would hold a referendum proposing to remove the offence of blasphemy from the Constitution,” Minister Flanagan said.

“We are doing that now. The referendum will take place on Friday, 26 October, the same day as the Presidential election,” Minister Flanagan said.

“Fine Gael wants the crime of blasphemy removed from our Constitution. It is time for this to be changed with a ‘Yes’ vote.

“We believe that freedom of belief and expression are important values in a democratic society. Criminalising blasphemy is not consistent with these values.

“Ireland is a country that respects religious diversity and religious freedom at home and around the world. We speak out when countries sentence ‘blasphemers’ to death, violent punishment or imprisonment.

“Our voice will be stronger if we remove blasphemy from our Constitution. Blasphemy has no place in the modern Constitution of a democratic society.

“Recent polls show there is no room for complacency and every vote will be important.

“My message to anyone who believes the crime of blasphemy doesn’t belong in our Constitution is please vote. Don’t assume others will get this referendum proposal passed for you," Minister Flanagan concluded.

"Have your voice heard on October 26th and vote ‘Yes’ vote yes to remove blasphemy from our Constitution.”