Blasphemy, blast for you, blast for everyone (no prejudice here)

Things are about to kick off in Ireland, where the Irish Parliament yesterday voted through a new blasphemy law….
I was going to say on a wing and a prayer, but in fact to do it they had to abandon the usual electronic voting system and demand a walk through vote. This gave time for a typically disorientated Green to stop giving Colombian trade unionists a guided tour of somewhere else entirely and another politico to stagger back from the dentist. Even then it only scraped through on the chairman’s casting vote.
Atheist Ireland (see sidebar for links) hold an AGM tomorrow at which a suitably all-encompassing blasphemous statement will be drafted and published to make a nonsense of the new law. Also see http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0710/1224250387007.html to read AE’s Michael Nugent charge in all guns blazing and get things nicely under way.
By the way, you’ve got to like a group which says:
“We are also launching a campaign encouraging people to read the Bible and other sacred books. Objectively reading the Bible is one of the strongest arguments for rejecting the idea of gods as intervening creators or moral guides.”
Check the Irish press if you can in coming days to see the fun, and when the statement does come, let’s see what we can do to spread it around the net and make total nonsense of a law which should not be on the books of any civilised country.

An Irish reformation

The campaign against a blasphemy law in Ireland (see Down with that sort of thing! )is gathering pace rapidly, and the associated website at http://blasphemy.ie/ is well worth a look. Why not add a message of support while you’re there.
Atheist Ireland, the group behind it, has only been around since December 2008, and though I keep in touch with Irish humanists north and south of the border I hadn’t seen these guys before. There’s a website at http://atheist.ie/, again well worth a look, especially the blog.
The latter reveals a lively interest in the kind of topics favoured on here – e.g. free speech, censorship, religious privilege – and a robust, no nonsense stance. They definitely join my list of fellow spirits to keep an eye on and collaborate with should opportunities arise.
It’s great to see things are perking up in Ireland, as also demonstrated in the latest issue of Humanism Ireland, which dropped through my letterbox this morning. OK, got to declare an interest as this blog started life as a column in that mag’s predecessor, which continues in the current mag. That said, it’s a cracking wee mag which equals any Brit humanist publication: in fact the wide range of articles, topics and contributors is evidence of a real open door policy which I only wish those mags would try to emulate.
You can find out more at http://nireland.humanist.org.uk/publicat.html , though unfortunately the usual sample articles from the latest (and particularly informative) issue aren’t up on the site yet.