Word: lawness
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...This safeguard has not stopped cultural and opposition figures from lining up to attack the new law as arcane and anachronistic. Leading the fray is the advocacy group Atheist Ireland, which in January defiantly published 25 blasphemous statements on its website by figures as diverse as atheist author Richard Dawkins and musicians Frank Zappa and Björk. "This is introducing medieval canon law into a modern pluralist republic," says the group's director, Michael Nugent. "There are other countries that do have blasphemy laws from bygone eras that are on the statute books but not enforced. Ireland...
...religious inclination) day to open a blasphemous art exhibition than Good Friday. As many Irish Catholics were dutifully attending church, a group of young, well-dressed Dubliners gathered in the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art to view an exhibition inspired by the country's new - and much loathed - antiblasphemy law...
...ranged from bemusement to gratitude that at least one venue in Dublin's capital was serving alcohol on the most abstinent of Irish religious holidays. But for curator K. Bear Koss, the objective of the exhibition is very serious: "We want to raise awareness about the new blasphemy law," he says, "and to celebrate the freedoms of discourse that the law seeks to stifle." (See the top 10 art exhibitions...
...statute at the heart of the exhibition, which came into effect on Jan. 1, is actually an update to a dormant blasphemy law that had been included in Ireland's 1937 constitution but proved too vague to be enforceable. A parliamentary committee set up to overhaul the constitution issued a report in 2007 recommending that the old law be dropped altogether. But Justice Minister Dermot Ahern led a campaign to clarify the law instead, defining blasphemy as any statement "grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion" and adding a fine...
...date, there have been no prosecutions under the law. But some feel that its mere presence on the books is already coloring debate in the country. "Even if there is no official appetite for a show trial, media outlets can't take the chance of the law not being enforced," Nugent says. "So there is a kind of self-imposed censorship." This would seem to be the case at national broadcaster RTE. While working on his irreverent television series The Savage Eye, which features excoriating sketches about the Catholic church, comedian Dave McSavage says he was sent a draft version...