The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams gave a lecture about criticism of religion (thanks to commenter gs for the pointer, which let me revise the post to quote the original lecture, rather than the Times of London excerpts). Parts of the lecture that dealt with nonlegal questions were quite interesting and plausible; parts I couldn't fully assess, because they referred to other works that I haven't read, or details of various controversies (such as the English reaction to the original Salman Rushdie fatwa) that I hadn't followed carefully.
But the legal parts were quite striking, and in my view strikingly wrong. Williams was accepting the need to revise the existing English blasphemy laws, but gave the following thoughts about what should replace them:
The grounds for legal restraint in respect of language and behaviour offensive to religious believers are pretty clear: the intention to limit or damage a believer's freedom to be visible and audible in the public life of a society is plainly an invasion of what a liberal society ought to be guaranteeing; and the obvious corollary is that the creation of an offence of incitement to religious hatred is a way of avoiding the civil disorder that threatens when a group comes to feel that it has been unjustly excluded....The law cannot and should not prohibit argument, which involves criticism, and even, as I noted earlier, angry criticism at times; but it can in some settings send a signal about what is generally proper in a viable society by stigmatising and punishing extreme behaviours that have the effect of silencing argument. Rather than assuming that it is therefore only a few designated kinds of extreme behaviour that are unacceptable and that everything else is fair game, the legal provision should keep before our eyes the general risks of debasing public controversy by thoughtless and (even if unintentionally) cruel styles of speaking and acting....
An appalling proposal, though I expect that many others would agree with it. Thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Call for Affirmative Action in Free Speech Rights:
- Let's Ban "Thoughtless and Cruel" Criticism of Religions:
Or maybe, the Anglican Church will admit the error of its ways and rejoin to the Roman Church?
Give me a break. This is laughable.
Whether it should be law is quite another question.
Now, if the subject is tea, well, legal measures may be called for.
The Anglican Church was founded by murderers seeking to defend polygamy as practised by the powerful. By the time of the English Reformation, Henry VIII had become a proto-Stalin, eliminating his enemies, his potential enemies, and then turning on and purging a number of his own supporters. He promulgated the 1534 Treasons Act that made it a capital crime to deny that the King was the head of the Chrisitan church in England. As the Act was executed, so were men such as Ss. John Fisher and Thomas More for refusing to speak certain words when order to do so. He then promised the Pilgrimage of Grace leaders that he'd [Quote] stop being such a total dick [unquote] if they'd tell him their compliants and disperse. They did so, and then he had them rounded up, tortured, and beheaded. The latter fate, famously, also befell two wives whom he'd decided were redundant. To be rid of one, he accused her of adulterous perversions with four men, whom he had drawn-and-quartered. Oh, and he was also banging her sister.
So, like, that kinda thing would be unacceptable to the successor of Cranmer? I mean, for example?
I am wondering though, as a historical matter (not as a matter of current jurisprudence), to what extent would a blasphemy law be constitutional in the United States?
Did the Congress that passed the Alien &Sedition acts think it was acting Constitutionally? Based on the theory that the amendment only protects against prior restraints?
The historical questions aside, I agree that the proposal would be very bad policy indeed.
What does that even mean? First of all, I assume "keep before our eyes" means "call our attention to," not "protect us from." How would silencing free expression call their attention to the cost of its excesses? Are you sure he's recommending a speech ban, not opposing it? I realize that such bans are a popular European norm, and the Anglican Church would be a likely suspect for its advocacy, but I'm having trouble reading that intent into this statement.
Not exactly consonant with our First Amendment tradition.
It's the same sentiments that led to campaign finance reform.
I would guess that all negative statements about him and his version of Anglicanism could be adjudged, by any reasonable person, as thoughtful and useful.
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 are four distinct laws. The Alien Enemies Act remains in force today in the form of
50 U.S.C. § 21-24. The Sedition Act is actually rather mild in comparison with other similar laws, such as the English law against seditious libel. It punishes only false statements and explicitly permits the jury to determine their truth or falsehood. In English law, seditious libel was anything bringing the crown into disrepute, whether true or false.
I don't much like the idea of having political speech judged true or false by the courts, but the Sedition Act was actually quite an advance over English law and not terribly different from the criminal law of libel against private persons.
Nick
You have proven your utter unworthiness for the post. What this says about the state of the Anglican Communion and what passes for main-line Protestantism in the USA is that this branch of Christendom is in collapse. Intellectually, morally, and, most importantly, theologically your understanding of the faith seems out of touch with reality.
One has to wonder if Dr. Williams keeps current with the news. I rather doubt that he has heard abut the political bloggers in Europe (Poligazette)who have recently felt pressured to withdraw comments critical of Moslems because they received death threats. Not to mention Moslem mobs demanding the execution of a Briton for allowing her elementary school class to name a teddy bear 'Mohammed.' Moslem governments in Iran and elsewhere looking the other way over the honor killings of woemen by men, and the stoning and hanging of women for sexual improprieties in Iran. Or what does he make of the violence in Kenya, where tribal balkanization is well under way. These seem to be logical and expectable outcomes of the religious separatism and identity politics practiced by multiculturalists in Europe and the US. Not one of them has yet been able to point to an example of increased peace and harmony brought about by their practices, but we have plenty of examples of the failure of them. the Archbishop's comments are more of the same.
Suggestion to the Arch Bishop: Bugger Off!
Wow!