No More Mr. Nice Guy!

Well, it's about goddam bloody time!

Via PZ comes news that Britain is finally abolishing laws which forbid the victimless crime of blasphemy. Welcome to the twentieth century, old chaps! See you in the twenty-first century a few years from now.

Laws against blasphemy have existed in England and its colonies since the time of Henry VIII, but were intended only to protect the established Church of England. Thus the courts ruled that Salman Rushdies's novel The Satanic Verses was not blasphemous because it offended Islam, not the official state-sanctioned version of Christianity.

There have been a number of high-profile blasphemy prosecutions in Britain over the years, with charges often prosecuted as a criminal matter and containing such flowery language as "casting contumelious reproach or profane ridicule upon God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Scripture... to the extreme displeasure of Almighty God." How did those bewigged judges presume to know the mind of God? Rather more perniciously, blasphemy was often used as an instrument to persecute atheists and rationalists.

The existence of blasphemy laws on the books in the US is an obvious violation of the constitutional ban on government establishment of a religion, but this has not stopped some states from maintaining such laws well into the 1970's. For example, Maryland law used to state:

Art. 72, sec. 189. If any person, by writing or speaking, shall blaspheme or curse God, or shall write or utter any profane words of and concerning our Saviour, Jesus Christ, or of and concerning the Trinity, or any of the persons thereof, he shall, on conviction, be fined not more than one hundred dollars, or imprisoned not more than six months, or both fined and imprisoned as aforesaid, at the discretion of the court.

There was a case in Maryland in 1968 where a policeman was arresting a trucker for being drunk and disorderly. The trucker said, "get your goddam hands off me," and was slapped with an additional charge of blasphemy, landing him with extra fines and jail time. This case finally led to Maryland's law being declared unconstitutional.

Blasphemy laws, by their nature, are always prosecuted arbitrarily and selectively, and used to support whichever superstition the power elite wishes to impose on the public. There is no justification for them in a democratic, secular society. Good goddam riddance!

Remember, blasphemy is a blast for me!