David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I speak from the point of view of a believing, churchgoing Christian. I go to St. Patrick's Cathedral and to St. Bartholomew's Church in Clyde Road, where I sang in the choir as a child every Sunday for holy communion. I am not an militant atheist and I am not trying to wreck the Christian context of this country. However, I believe also, as strongly as I believe in my religion, in the separation of Church and State. We have heard that 10% of the Irish people in the last census identified as atheist, and there are Muslims - those of Islamic faith - and Buddhists. A substantial section of our population do not necessarily believe in Jesus Christ and the invocation of the Trinity in the opening of the Constitution, which means nothing to them or is offensive to them. That should all be removed. As a believing Christian, I believe it appropriate to remove all those references, including the one in Article 44.1 of the Constitution which states that we acknowledge the homage that is due to God Almighty, and so on. Those are inappropriate, in my opinion.

To look at it this way, the great dean of St. Patrick's, Jonathan Swift, would be absolutely banged up on a blasphemy charge for A Modest Proposaland for his various diatribes on religion. The great dean, Jonathan Swift, would be up in court if we maintained this legislation.

There have been a series of reports that concluded that we should get rid of blasphemy. A referendum went through and was approved by people in all 40 constituencies. However, I have to correct my good friend, Senator Martin Conway, that it was not 88% but 64.5%, so it was not as overwhelming as might at first have been thought.

In my opinion, God - if one believes in God - is well able to look after himself or herself. The Garda Síochána is not needed to provide protection for God. It is absolute nonsense. However, it does damage, and there is no question or doubt about that. I was here when the Fianna Fáil Minister, Dermot Ahern, was speaking about this and refusing to remove blasphemy. I argued that if we continued it, and if we re-enacted this Bill, which is what he was about, within a very short space of time, some of the Islamic countries would turn to us and say, "You accuse us of harassing, torturing and killing people on an offence of blasphemy, and look at Ireland, in the middle of 21st century Europe, it is introducing its own blasphemy legislation", and they would be followed by Indonesia. These are places where the most terrible revenge is wreaked on people, simply for being Christian, which they regard as blasphemous. I thought it was politically very counterproductive.

I am glad to see film included. I remember when "The Life of Brian" was banned in this country for blasphemy, which was ridiculous. It was a thoughtful, wonderful, marvellously comic investigation of the situation in which the wrong person was chosen as Jesus. It was a wonderful film. I would hate to think of that being got rid of again.

With regard to "The Book of Mormon", I have been visited by the Mormons and I have always tried to be courteous to them. However, when they told me that the Holy Ghost had flesh and bones but no blood, I suggested an immediate transfusion for the poor old boy. I suppose I could have been done for blasphemy under that. The one really good thing about "The Book of Mormon" is that it shows so reassuringly that God is still speaking the English of the King James Bible, which is so reassuring to those of us of the Anglican faith.

There are also other issues. I remember when Gay Newswas banned and we used to distribute it through the Hirschfeld Centre. It was banned in Britain as a result of a prosecution taken by Mrs. Whitehouse and our copies were seized at the airport. Therefore, I have direct experience of the operation of this kind of legislation.

I speak from the situation of somebody who is a believer. I am not frightened by blasphemy coming out. There are other ways of dealing with this. If a grave offence is being committed by some public act of blasphemy, we have breach of the peace legislation which can cover that quite easily. I am not so despondent as Senator McDowell, despite his very wide legal experience, about the question of hate crimes. I would strongly support Fianna Fáil in the introduction of legislation on hate crimes. That seems to me to be a practical and efficient thing, and it might get rid of some of the worst excesses. However, I honestly do not think this country is boiling over with people who want to desecrate the communion, hold black masses, blackguard the holy family and all of that. It is just not Irish. I am quite confident this Bill is a good thing and I will be thoroughly supporting it.