By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
This October twenty-sixth, voters in Ireland will decide at the polls if the country’s prohibition on blasphemy should be removed from the nation’s constitution. It comes for me as a welcome sign of some progress against what otherwise was a trend in Western Europe toward establishing an international blasphemy standard that many regard as censorship and a vehicle for possible criminal prosecution of speech and expression.
While the Irish government has insisted that no persons have been successfully prosecuted for blasphemy since the 1850s, the existence of any such statute serves as leverage by the state to control what its citizens may say or what behavior it considers objectionable. The time for repeal I believe has arrived.
Continue reading “Ireland To Hold Referendum On Removing Anti-Blasphemy Offenses From Constitution”
Kuwait has continued to remind the world that, despite its advances in the modern world, it remains a religiously orthodox government imposing medieval values on its population. That fact was on display this week as the government 
Last year, we experienced a national debate over the right of Colorado cake shop owner Jack Phillips can refuse to make a special cake for a same-sex marriage due to religious objections in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. I 
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There is a bizarre new rule in Scotland’s Islands Bill that 
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Georgetown University professor Dr. Carol Christine Fair 
Far right political leader, Marine Le Pen, has been ordered into psychiatric evaluations after she posted graphic images of bodies of people executed by the Islamic State. She was accused under the French laws criminalization different forms of speech — laws that I have long criticized as part of a European rollback on core free speech rights. Posting the pictures was 
I have previously written about the continued use of blasphemy laws in the West, including Spain and Ireland. The continued enforcement of medieval concepts of blasphemy as evidenced by the detention of Willy Toledo, who was accused of ridiculing God and the Virgin Mary in court. Toledo is being targeted due to comments made on social media in support of three women who are being prosecuted for blasphemy. It is chilling to think that an actual judge would hold such a hearing in modern times. The nation that gave us the Spanish Inquisition still claims the right to imprison people for insulting God.
Yesterday, we 
We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on