If religionists offend us by calling atheists “immoral”, “scummy” or just plain “evil”, we do what any rational and confident person of sound judgement does: we ignore them (or if you’re like me, you write steamy vitriol in your pathetic blog). That’s usually the extent of our outrage, but for religious folks, who benefit from the tyranny of their majority, the inverse reaction to being offended is not so muted.
Take the example of Harry Taylor, who left sexually explicit images of religious figures in the prayer room of John Lennon Airport (the irony, it burns!). He’s been recently convicted of “aggravated intentional harassment” (is there any other kind of harassment other than intentional?). Although it might sound like a pretty mild charge, it carries with it a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. Yes, you heard right, Mr. Taylor could go to jail for almost a decade for offending a priest in an airport named after a guy who’s most popular song extols the joys of living in a world without religion. My head is officially about to explode.
The Crown Prosecution is trying to defend this draconian law, saying it looks at each case based on it’s own merits. What fucking merit is convicting a man for offending someone? No one has a right to “not be offended”. You live in a world where people have different opinions and ideas, and it’s inevitable that some of those will offend you. Fucking deal with it.
The British government is cowardly for allowing such a law to exists, and it’s citizens should be ashamed that such a case was even prosecuted. For a so-called “secular” country, you’ve got a lot of house cleaning to do…
March 8th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Fucking Britain!
March 8th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
This will definitely be one to follow. An important verdict, to be sure.
Surprised this law exists in the UK; Breaking it means publicly displaying something that’s “insulting”. Subjective language in a law is always TROUBLE.
So, wearing an “I’m with stupid ->” t-shirt is potentially illegal.
What the bloodclot was going on in 1986 to get this law passed?!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
On a similar note, there’s a guy named Adam Darski (better known by his stage name of Nergal, frontman of Polish Death Metal band Behemoth) who’s about to be charged for ripping up a Bible in his home country. If convicted, he could face 2 years in prison…
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=136374
Hell, I’ve been drinking water all day. Give me a stack of Bibles (with maybe a few Korans, Torahs and copies of Dianetics) and I’ll pee on ‘em right NOW! It’d be awesome if a bunch of people got together and did some sort of mass blasphemy to challenge these kind of cases, even if all they did was say “Jehovah”…
Whoops. Just made it worse for myself. =)
March 9th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Britain is not exactly a secular country, there is still no clear separation of chruch and state.
Not that I’m trying to excuse this rediculous use of the legal system.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
jesus fucking christ.
too bad for him i’m not in charge, i’d give the guy a couple free flights for his creativity and send him on his merry way.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:26 am
Now my question is: Is this guy going to find Jesus in jail? I guess not. On a different note though I think this is fucking outrageous.
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:31 pm
The result is in….
An ASBO, a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years 100 hours of unpaid work and pay £250 costs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8640048.stm