Next in Irish Voters’ Cross Hairs? A Law Banning Blasphemy

DUBLIN — For eight decades, the blasphemous of Ireland have risked the wrath not just of their maker and of the Roman Catholic Church, but of the government itself.

“The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law,” says Article 40 of the Irish Constitution.

But the government may soon step out of the religious enforcement business. In October, Irish citizens will vote in a referendum on whether the blasphemy clause should be stripped from the constitution.

Government officials are also leaning toward giving voters a chance to jettison another artifact of old Ireland: a provision of the 1937 constitution suggesting that a woman’s place is in the home.

As a practical matter, neither constitutional provision plays much of a role in modern Ireland, a country that little resembles the socially conservative bastion once firmly under the grip of the Catholic Church.

Whatever risks they may run in eternity, Irish blasphemers face little chance of punishment in this world. But the prohibition is still in the constitution, and a corresponding law is on the books, with a top fine of almost $30,000.

Last year, English actor Stephen Fry was reported to Irish police for blasphemy after he made comments disparaging God in an interview on a religious affairs television program.

If he ever met God, Fry said, he would ask him: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault. It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”

Prosecutors declined to pursue the case, and government officials have made clear that they view the blasphemy law as meaningless. Last year, Simon Harris, the health minister, called it “silly” and “a little embarrassing.”

When the law was introduced in 2009, officials claimed that they were just adhering to the constitutional requirement that one exist — and that they had written it to be essentially unenforceable. (The law replaced a measure outlawing only blasphemy against Christianity, not other faiths. It was found to be discriminatory.)

But Eoin Daly, a lecturer in constitutional law at the National University of Ireland, Galway, said that it was possible prosecution might occur in an “egregious case,” and that the law had a “chilling effect” as long as it stayed on the books.

Michael Nugent, a spokesman for the advocacy group Atheism Ireland, welcomed the referendum, saying that even in the absence of prosecutions the law was causing real damage to freedom of expression in Ireland, and to the country’s reputation abroad.

Nugent said he was aware of cases in which news organizations had “self-censored” to avoid the potential cost of a blasphemy complaint, however vexatious.

And internationally, he said, the wording of Ireland’s law has been taken up by Islamic states seeking to justify their own blasphemy laws.

“We became a Western poster boy for Islamic states and their oppressive practices,” Nugent said. “It’s never a good look when Pakistan, where people are killed for blasphemy, is speaking approvingly of your laws.”

In announcing the referendum Tuesday, Ireland’s justice minister, Charles Flanagan, also pointed to countries where blasphemy was punishable by death.

“Such situations are abhorrent to our beliefs and values,” Flanagan said. “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.”

The second clause that may go before voters in October is in a part of the constitution covering the family.

“In particular,” it says, “the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”

Ailbhe Smyth, a veteran feminist campaigner, said that provision was a relic.

“It was very patriarchal,” she said. “The problem was, it never did women any good. It was never used by any government to ensure that women, or anyone else who stayed in the home, got any extra support or recognition. It’s redundant and obsolete and needs to be placed with all the other relics that Ireland is now getting rid of.”

Irish citizens have, in fact, found repeated occasion in recent years to revisit the social strictures embedded in their constitution. They have voted to allow divorce and same-sex marriage and, last month, to remove an abortion ban.

“Things like abortion and same-sex marriage and blasphemy are seen as religious issues, sectarian issues, and there is now a desire to remove them from the constitution,” said Daly, the university lecturer. “It’s about how we make statements about ourselves and express our changing identity.”

Unlike the referendums on divorce, same-sex marriage and abortion, the move to decriminalize blasphemy has met with little opposition from the Irish Catholic Church or from most religious denominations.

David Quinn, a spokesman for the Iona Institute, a conservative Christian policy group, said he had long favored removing the blasphemy clause. He also supports either removing the clause on women in the home or changing it to make it gender neutral.

The blasphemy clause has drawn some support elsewhere. In 2013 a leading Dublin-based Islamic group, the Islamic Cultural Center, and the Knights of Columbanus, a conservative Catholic fraternity, both argued unsuccessfully against ending it at a constitutional convention in Dublin.

Ireland’s Constitution can be amended only by a majority vote in a popular referendum.