Posts Tagged ‘ Ireland ’

Atheist Ireland at the Constitutional Convention

Nov 4th, 2013 12:07 pm | By

Michael Nugent provides video and transcripts of three speeches Saturday at the Constitutional Convention meeting about blasphemy law.

A bit from Michael’s:

You have rights, your beliefs do not. That is the essence of freedom of conscience.

You can respect my right to believe that there is no God, while not respecting the content of my belief. And I can respect your right to believe that there is a God, without respecting the content of your belief.

But blasphemy laws discriminate against atheists. They treat religious beliefs and sensitivities as more worthy of legal protection than atheist beliefs and sensitivities.

For example, we were recently at a conference in Limerick about religious pluralism in Irish schools, at which two Catholic

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Loosen the screws, the better to tighten them

Nov 4th, 2013 11:49 am | By

Hmm, it’s good to get rid of a blasphemy law, but it’s not good to replace it with “a new general provision to include incitement to religious hatred” – meaning, apparently, to include something that forbids so-called incitement to religious hatred. Unfortunately that’s just what Ireland’s constitutional convention has recommended, according to the Irish Times.

The constitutional offence of blasphemy should be replaced with a new general provision to include incitement to religious hatred, the constitutional convention has recommended.

Voting today on whether the reference to the offence of blasphemy should be kept as it is in the Constitution, 38 per cent said Yes, 61 per cent said No and 1 per cent were undecided or had no opinion.

In

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Priests who brooked no opposition of any kind

Aug 2nd, 2013 12:11 pm | By

There’s a little book published in association with RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) in 1986, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl. It started as a series of radio interviews with writers, who then lived up to their job titles by writing up what they’d said. Polly Devlin included in her account a look at the grip the church had on Ireland in the 1950s.

As a social system our Catholic religion constituted a tyranny – not within the confines of our family but certainly outside it. We as a family were brought up in a dispensation that was different from that heavily medieval Catholic one that obtained in the parish…My father had been brought up in an

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The Magdalene laundries

Feb 5th, 2013 10:56 am | By

The report on the Magdalene laundries in Ireland is out.

Between 1922 and 1996 around 10,000 women are known to have entered Magdalen laundries, working for no pay in what were lonely and frightening places.

Senator McAleese and his committee were asked to outline the extent of state involvement and knowledge of the women in these laundries.

In each of the five categories it examined, it found evidence of state involvement. Most notably, 26% of the women who entered the laundries were referred there by the state.

The authorities also inspected the laundries, funded them, and registered the departures and deaths of the women there.

But it found that there was a legal basis for the state’s involvement as

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No you may not decide for you

Feb 2nd, 2013 10:40 am | By

The anti-abortion phalanx in Ireland is shouting louder than ever, according to the BBC.

The groups taking part – Youth Defence, Pro Life Ireland and the Catholic organisation, the Iona Institute – testify to the polemical nature of the debate here.

“Keep Your Promise!” they shout – a direct reference to a 2011 election pledge by the main party in Ireland’s coalition not to legislate for abortion.

Nice pledge – a “promise” to keep women enslaved by the physical fact that it’s possible to become pregnant without consent.

Nope, sorry, laydeez, tough shit. God gave you the equipment to become pregnant so if you do become pregnant you don’t get to complain that you didn’t mean to, that you … Read the rest

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It’s still a Christian country

Jun 13th, 2012 10:46 am | By

Cork city councillors don’t want no stinkin’ secularism. Cork city councillors say Ireland is a Christian country so there.

A proposal to scrap a prayer at the start of a local authority meeting sparked an unholy row last night.

Cork’s city councillors voted overwhelmingly against the move after a heated debate.

Socialist Party councillor Mick Barry, an atheist, called for the deletion of a rule governing the order of council business which states that the start of the council’s public meetings should include the recitation of an opening prayer, followed by a brief period of silent reflection.

The prayer reads: “Direct, we beseech thee, O Lord, our actions by thy holy inspirations and carry them on by thy gracious assistance;

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)