Blasphemy

Our minister, Rev. Chris Hudson, gave a fascinating sermon today about the history of blasphemy laws in Great Britain and Ireland. The shorthand version is that Britain removed its laws after the nation was outraged by the jailing of an ailing atheist pamphleteer, who died shortly after serving his term. I didn't take notes. Let's just say this happened 100 years ago. Various efforts to remove blasphemy laws from Ireland's books have failed, a reflection of Ireland's continuing failure to separate church from state.

It was an interesting, nuanced sermon. Something like two million people gathered in France today to grieve and to express support for French values of liberty, equality, fraternity. The lack of a U.S. leader was noted. Chris' sermon seemed to be pointing up the ways in which other countries have fallen short of those values and the ways in which blasphemers have found themselves on the wrong side of the law in Ireland.
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