One weekend home from college, I told my mother I had become a Satanist. That was so outside the scope of what she could accept that it really didn’t faze her. “Just kidding”, I said, “actually, I’ve converted to Catholicism.” That’s when she got upset.
I’m sure you’d appreciate that a lot more if you grew up in a small Southern Baptist country church.
In any case, now that I have your attention, what do you think of this question asked at The Washington Post: “Is blasphemy a crime?” It has become so in Ireland, where it can cost you about $35,000 and give you a criminal record.
The UN, since 1999, has each year passed a non-binding resolution condemning “defamation of religions”, but the latest attempt was for a binding resolution — that is, all member countries would have to criminalize blasphemy.
Jason Kuznicki of the Cato Institute thinks that “Blasphemy Laws Are an Admission of Failure“.
It’s not just the humanists or libertarians who think this is a bad idea.
WorldNewsDaily has their their own perspective.
Tom Strode at the Baptist Press says “ERLC, 100-plus groups oppose United Nations ‘defamation of religions’ resolution“. [ERLC is the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission]
Whether you’re Wiccan, Christian, Muslim, Mormon, Hindu, Scientologist, FSM Pastafarian, agnostic, or atheist — I don’t care. What I do care about is being free to think and say whatever I want about your or my religion without fear of it being a criminal act.
Anti-blasphemy laws are just wrong, wrong, wrong.