A proposed ban on abuse of religious objects only helps to silence critics and dissenters
The answer to the question is both simple and complex. It is simple because any law outlawing any kind of blasphemy is unacceptable and should be opposed. Having abolished its blasphemy law in 2017, forIt is complex, though, because at the heart of the controversy lie two issues: on the one hand, freedom of religion and speech, and, on the other, anti-Muslim bigotry. In defending the first, one must also oppose the second.
Blasphemy laws are objectionable not just because they seek to impose religious norms on those who don’t believe, or who believe in a different god, but also because in so doing they serve to protect political power, too. “The sacred order,” as the Polish Marxist-turned-Christian philosopher, Leszek Kołakowski, observed, “has never ceased, implicitly or explicitly, to proclaim ‘this is how things are, they cannot be otherwise’.” Whether in theocratic states or within minority communities in liberal democracies, the charge of blasphemy helps to shore up the power of religious leaders and institutions and to silence critics and dissenters.
The issue is complicated, however, by the context of the book burnings. Burning a book, supporters of the Danish law argue, is not a form of speech. To ban the practice is therefore not a free speech issue, especially when the ban seeks to curb the activities of
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