Humanists call on Scottish government to abolish blasphemy laws

[rug]

December 6, 2016

Humanist Society Scotland (HSS) has called on the Scottish government to show “moral leadership” by repealing Scotland’s blasphemy law. The call comes in response to a new international report on discrimination and persecution against the non-religious by the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

The Freedom of Thought Report records discrimination and persecution against humanists, atheists, and the non-religious, with a country-by-country assessment. The report finds that “blasphemy” is outlawed in at least 59 countries where it is punishable with a prison term or in some cases by death. There are laws against apostasy in 22 countries. At least 13 countries provide for the use of the death penalty for blasphemy or apostasy.

Scotland’s blasphemy law was last used in 1843 to convict Thomas Paterson, an Edinburgh bookseller, of selling blasphemous literature. He was jailed for 15 months.

In 1697 it was invoked against atheist student Thomas Aikenhead, the last person in Britain to be hanged for blasphemy.

http://www.scottishlegal.com/2016/12/06/humanists-call-on-scottish-government-to-abolish-blasphemy-laws/

[guillaumeb]

1. What next? Abolish the Inquisition? eom

[struggle4progress]

2. If I recall right, in England a law can become null through sufficiently long non-enforcement,

and I think this is also true here in the US

I don't know to what degree a very old English precedent might apply in Scotland, but we may reasonably expect that anyone prosecuted under this law unused for over 170 years would so convincingly complain of selective enforcement, and the prosecutor be so widely lampooned, that the issue should be regarded (to use an old Scottish word) as moot

[rug]

3. I don't know the law in Scotland but I seriously doubt these laws are enforceable.

Any more than peppercorn rent.