Careful now! Father Ted creators warn against “insane” blasphemy law
The creators of the classic comedy series Father Ted have come out in support of Atheist Ireland‘s campaign against the proposed blasphemy law. Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan gave their backing to a proposed “blasphemous statement,” which will be published by Atheist Ireland next Saturday in the likely event of the law being passed at the Dail this week.
The statement will blaspheme all the major religions in Ireland, including Christianity and Islam.
Graham Lineham said of the law,
This is insanity. Please, Mr Ahern, define the things we can’t say, please! Can we say, ‘Jesus is gay’? Or can we ask, ‘Is God in a biscuit?’ Could he tell us what it means? It is just insanity. After all, there are things contained in the holy books of one religion that are blasphemy to another religion. The logic behind this comes from Alice in Wonderland.
He went on to suggest it was part of a trend
to placate the craziest people on earth.
Mathews said that the law
hardly seems necessary in the Ireland of the 21st century … It’s a pity that law hadn’t been introduced when we were writing Father Ted, because it would have given us a great storyline. The best attitude to this nonsense is to laugh at it and send it up. There is no popular clamour for it in Ireland, so I wonder why Dermot Ahern has brought it in the first place.
Down with this sort of thing!
UPDATE: (7 July) Graham Lineham wasn’t happy with the way he was misquoted in The Guardian, so he agreed to answer a few questions from The New Humanist. A snippet:
It’s very important to smack down every attack on free speech and secularism when they appear, because religious fanatics are getting louder and crazier and more violent, and capitulating only energises them
When I first read about the new Irish blasphemy law, I very nearly asked: “Was this legislation drawn up by the Father Ted team?” and now we have this! Talk about you couldn`t make it up!!
All religions are mutually blasphemous. If they weren’t, there would only be one religion. Or no religion.