2010
01.05
01.05
Across the pond, Ireland is pretty well known as a place of religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, but their new blasphemy law is facing a lot of criticism. Their original constitution stated that you could be prosecuted for perpetrating blasphemy and because of some legal thing in their constitution, they had to keep it when they revised a revision to the constitution. Atheist and religious groups alike seem to find it too vague and not particularly enforceable.
Read on here for more information.
According to the new law in Ireland, it would be illegal to publish or utter anything that is “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion.”
For fun, I thought I would compare some of our student speech codes here at USU to this controversial new law. Predictably, the Student Code grants a right to publish and “freedom from censorship”. But this appears to be in tension with some other statements. For instance, the Housing Handbook Residential Support Principle 04-05 requires that you “respect the dignity of all persons by not demeaning, teasing, ridiculing, or insulting individuals or groups.”
So it appears that students living in university housing are already living under a “law” that is more restrictive than the Irish blasphemy law (not “demeaning” or “teasing” or “ridiculing” seems stricter than the Irish rejection of “grossly abusive or insulting” utterances).
Of course, it is worth noting that there are some good reasons for college campuses having stricter speech codes than the law of the land generally, though it is always a delicate balance. But be careful, SHAFTers!