Blasphemy law in the United Kingdom
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This article describes the law of blasphemy in the United Kingdom.
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Before the common law era
The offence of blasphemy was originally part of ecclesiastical law. In the seventeenth century, blasphemy was declared a common law offence by the Court of the King's Bench, punishable by the common law courts.
Common Law treatment
From the 16th to the mid 19th century, blasphemy against the Christian religion was held as an offence against common law. Blasphemy was also used a legal instrument to persecute atheists, Unitarians, and others.
All blasphemies against God, as denying His being, or providence, all contumelious reproaches of Jesus Christ, all profane scoffing at the Holy Scriptures, or exposing any part thereof to contempt or ridicule, were punishable by the temporal courts with fine, imprisonment, and also infamous corporal punishment. An act of Edward VI (repealed 1553 and revived 1558) set a punishment of imprisonment for reviling the sacrament of the Last Supper. Those denying the Trinity were deprived of the benefit of the Act of Toleration by an act of 1688. An act of 1697-1698, commonly called the Blasphemy Act, enacted that if any person, educated in or having made profession of the Christian religion, should by writing, preaching, teaching or advised speaking, deny that the members of the Holy Trinity were God, or should assert that there is more than one god, or deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures to be of divine authority, he should, upon the first offence, be rendered incapable of holding any office or place of trust, and for the second incapable of bringing any action, of being guardian or executor, or of taking a legacy or deed of gift, and should suffer three years imprisonment without bail.
It has been held that a person offending under the statute is also indictable at common law (Rex v. Carlisle, 1819, where Mr Justice Best remarks, In the age of toleration, when that statute passed, neither churchmen nor sectarians wished to protect in their infidelity those who disbelieved the Holy Scriptures). An act of 1812-1813 excepts from these enactments persons denying as therein mentioned respecting the Holy Trinity, but otherwise the common and the statute law on the subject remain as stated. In the case of Rex v. Woolston (1728) the court declared that they would not suffer it to be debated whether to write against Christianity in general was not an offence punishable in the temporal courts at common law, but they did not intend to include disputes between learned men on particular controverted points.
As of 1911, the law against blasphemy had practically ceased to be put in active operation. In 1841 Edward Moxon was found guilty of the publication of a blasphemous libel (Percy Bysshe Shelley's Queen Mab), the prosecution having been instituted by Henry Hetherington, who had previously been condemned to four months imprisonment for a similar offence, and wished to test the law under which he was punished. In the case of Cowan v. Milbourn (1867) the defendant had broken his contract to let a lecture-room to the plaintiff, on discovering that the intended lectures were to maintain that the character of Christ is defective, and his teaching misleading, and that the Bible is no more inspired than any other book, and the court of exchequer held that the publication of such doctrine was blasphemy, and the contract therefore illegal. On that occasion the court reaffirmed the dictum of Chief Justice Hale, that Christianity is part of the laws of England.
The commissioners on criminal law (sixth report) remarked that although the law forbade all denial of the being and providence of God or the Christian religion, it is only when irreligion assumes the form of an insult to God and man that the interference of the criminal law took place. In England the last prominent prosecution for blasphemy was the case of R. v. Ramsey & Foote, 1883, 48 L.T. 739, when the editor, publisher and printer of the Freethinker were sentenced to imprisonment; but police court proceedings were taken as late as 1908 against an obscure Hyde Park orator who had become a public nuisance.
Profane cursing and swearing was made punishable by the Profane Oaths Act 1745, which directs the offender to be brought before a justice of the peace, and fined an amount that depended on his social rank.
By the law of Scotland, as it originally stood, the punishment of blasphemy was death, but by an act of 1825, amended in 1837, blasphemy was made punishable by fine or imprisonment or both.
Currently, Blasphemy is something of a legal grey-area in the United Kingdom.
Modern day
- The last person in Britain to be sent to prison for blasphemy was John William Gott in 1921. He had three previous convictions for blasphemy when he was prosecuted for publishing two pamphlets entitled Rib Ticklers, or Questions for Parsons and God and Gott. In these pamphlets Gott satirised the biblical story of Jesus entering Jerusalem (Template:Bibleverse) comparing Jesus to a circus clown. He was sentenced to nine months' hard labour despite suffering from an incurable illness, and died shortly after he was released. The case became the subject of public outrage.
- In 1977 the case Whitehouse v. Lemon demonstrated that the offence of Blasphemous libel, long thought to be dormant, was still in force. BBC web site accoount (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/11/newsid_2499000/2499721.stm)
- The passage of the Human Rights Act 1998 requires the courts to interpret the law in a way that is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The offence of blasphemous libel is believed by some to be contrary to the freedom of speech provisions in the ECHR.
- British author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses was seen by many Muslims to blaspheme against Islam, and Iranian clerical leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for Rushdie's death (although strictly this was in response to Rushdie's claimed apostacy, not the novel's supposed blasphemy). Some British Muslims called for Rushdie to be tried under English law for blasphemy, but no charges were laid, as the English legal system recognises blasphemy only against the Christian faith. A UK House of Lords select committee stated that the law is narrower in scope and only protects the Church of England. (http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200203/ldselect/ldrelof/95/9515.htm )
The Rushdie case stimulated debate on this topic, with some arguing the same protection should be extended to all religions, while others claimed the UK's ancient blasphemy laws were an anachronism and should be abolished. Despite much discussion surrounding the controversy, the law was not amended.
- In 2002, a deliberate and well-publicised public reading of the poem that had led to the 1977 prosecution on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square failed to lead to any prosecution by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
- When the BBC decided to broadcast Jerry Springer: The Opera in January 2005, they received over 47,000 complaints by offended Christian viewers who objected to the show's portrail of Christian icons (including one scene depicting Jesus, dressed as a baby, professing to be "a bit gay"). The prayer group Christian Voice announced that it would be bringing a private blasphemy prosecution against the BBC - this case is still ongoing and details are as yet unclear.
See also
External links
- http://www.swarb.co.uk/c/hl/1979Whitehouse-GayNews.html
- Religious Offences in England and Wales - First Report (http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200203/ldselect/ldrelof/95/9501.htm)
- Appendix 3 - Blasphemy (http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200203/ldselect/ldrelof/95/9515.htm)
- New South Wales Law Reform Commission report on blasphemy (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/nswlrc/rpt74/00012.html), contains a good discussion of the English law up to 1828 when NSW law split off from English law