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BETWEEN BLASPHEMY AND CRITIQUE: FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2014

M. Christian Green
M. Christian Green*
Affiliation:
Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University
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Extract

On Valentine's Day, 1989, novelist Salman Rushdie was driven into hiding in England by a fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran decrying his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, as “blasphemy against Islam” and demanding Rushdie's execution. Twenty years later, Yale University Press refused to publish cartoon representations of the Prophet Muhammad in political scientist Jytte Klausen's book, The Cartoons That Shook the World. That book analyzed the controversy spawned by a Danish newspaper's publication of the cartoons in 2005 and the republication of the cartoons in several European newspapers in 2008, which led to protests by Muslims around the world. In 2010, Terry Jones, a Christian pastor in Florida, announced plans to publicly burn a Qur'an on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Under protest, he cancelled his book-burning plans for the 9/11 anniversary, but he made good on his promise six months later in March 2011, in an incident whose online video dissemination around the world is said to have motivated riots in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of twelve people. Throughout this period, with the regularity of a drumbeat, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference), a coalition of majority Muslim nations at the United Nations, introduced resolutions each year—first in the Human Rights Council (HRC) from 1999 forward and then in the General Assembly from 2005 forward—on “combating defamation of religions” at the UN and in wider global discourse.

Keywords

freedom of religionfreedom of expressionhate speechblasphemydefamation of religions
Type
REVIEW ESSAYS
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 176 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2014 

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References

1 Yale University Press, publisher's statement in Klausen, Jytte's The Cartoons That Shook the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

2 The United States' response to these events was confusing enough to prompt multiple journalistic renderings of the timeline for the tweets and follow-up. See, e.g., “What They Said Before and After the Attack in Libya,” New York Times, September 12, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html?_r=0; “The Events in Benghazi and the U.S. Reaction,” Washington Post, September 12, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/cairo-libya-attacks-timeline/; Garance Franke-Ruta, “Here's a Timeline of the Confusing Statements on Libya and Egypt,” Atlantic, September 12, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/heres-a-timeline-of-the-confusing-statements-on-libya-and-egypt/262264/.

3 U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, interview by Jake Tapper, This Week, ABC News, September 16, 2012, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-us-ambassador-united-nations-susan-rice/story?id=17240933.

4 “Obama's Speech to the United Nations General Assembly—Text,” New York Times, September 25, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/world/obamas-speech-to-the-united-nations-general-assembly-text.html; Helene Cooper, “Obama Tells UN New Democracies Need Free Speech,” New York Times, September 25, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/world/obamas-address-to-united-nations.html?_r=0.

5 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Rising Restrictions on Religion (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2011)Google Scholar, 67. Significantly, the Pew Forum's prior report, Global Restrictions on Religion (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2009)Google Scholar, just two years before, did not deal significantly with the blasphemy issue. The Pew researchers, led by senior researcher Brian J. Grim, found it necessary to devote a section to laws against apostasy, blasphemy, and defamation of religion in the subsequent report because of the increasing importance of these issues.

6 Ibid., 68.

7 Among the academic articles, see esp. March, Andrew F., “Speech and the Sacred: Does the Defense of Free Speech Rest on a Mistake about Religion?,” Political Theory 40, no. 3 (June 2012): 319–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Graham, L. Bennett, “Defamation of Religions: The End of Pluralism?,” Emory International Law Review 23, no. 1 (2009): 69–84Google Scholar; Temperman, Jeroen, “Blasphemy, Defamation of Religions and Human Rights Law,” Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 26, no. 4 (December 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 517–45; Emon, Anver M., “On the Pope, Cartoons, and Apostates: Shari'a 2006,” Journal of Law and Religion 22, no. 2 (2006/2007): 303–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Among the policy reports produced by governmental and nongovernmental organizations, see Article 19, Defining Defamation: Principles on Freedom of Expression and Protection of Reputation (London, Article 19, July 2000); Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, “Issues Brief: ‘Combating Defamation of Religions’” (Washington, DC: Becket Fund, June 2, 2008); Freedom House, Policing Belief: The Impact of Blasphemy Laws on Human Rights (New York: Freedom House, October 2010); Human Rights First, “Focus Paper on Defamation of Religions” (New York: Human Rights First, March 2010); International Humanist and Ethical Union, “Speaking Freely about Religion: Religious Freedom, Defamation, and Blasphemy” (London, IHEU, 2009); United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, “Policy Focus: The Dangerous Idea of Protecting Religions from ‘Defamation’: A Threat to Universal Human Rights Standards” (Washington, DC: USCIRF, 2009).

8 Between Dacey's various celebrations and critiques of secularism and humanism, his precise beliefs remain difficult to pin down. See Dacey, Austin, The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life (Prometheus Books, 2008)Google Scholar; Austin Dacey, “Decomposing Humanism: Why Replace Religion?,” Religion Dispatches, October 29, 2009; Peter Steinfels, “Perceiving 2 Fallacies, A Secularist Faults His Fellows,” New York Times, May 24, 2008.

9 See Otto Preminger-Institut v. Austria Judgment, Eur. H.R. Rep. 19 (1994); Wingrove v. United Kingdom Judgment, Eur. H.R. Rep. 19 (1996). In terms of “balancing” Muslim and Christian sensibilities on these issues, it is worth noting that both of these cases involved offenses to Christian groups and that many of the European laws on blasphemy, including the one recently repealed in the United Kingdom, have been directed at preventing offences against Christianity. The Muslim charge of Europeans' hypocrisy on blasphemy does have some basis in fact. And, of course, the United States has also had had to deal with cries of blasphemy from its own citizens, as in the public furor over Robert Mapplethorpe's homoerotic photography and Andres Serrano's Piss Christ installation.

10 Judith Butler (see discussion below) shares Dacey's skepticism about the capacity of law to promote ethical and cultural change.

11 This remark seems of a kind with Waldron's bidirectional understanding (see discussion below) of the harm of hate speech to democratic society.

12 See Taylor, Charles, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition”: An Essay, ed. Gutmann, Amy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

13 Waldron discusses this and what Voltaire really said at 226ff.

14 For a compendium of information on these factors, see Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, Blasphemy, Insult, and Hatred: Finding Answers in a Democratic Society, Science and Technique of Democracy 47 (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, March 2010), http://book.coe.int/EN/ficheouvrage.php?PAGEID=36&produit_aliasid=2474lang=EN.

15 See the discussion below of Mahmood's argument about the racialization of religion in these debates. See also Scott, Joan Wallach, “Racism,” chap. 2 in The Politics of the Veil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

16 Snyder v. Phelps, 131 S. Ct. 1207 (2011).

17 Ibid. at 1220.

18 Ibid. at 1221 (Breyer, J., concurring).

19 Ibid. at 1223 (Alito, J., dissenting). The animal “crush” video case was United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460 (2010).

20 Snyder, 131 S. Ct. at 1223 (Alito, J., dissenting).

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid. at 1227.

23 In fact, in recent surveys, Catholics in the United States and abroad have shown high levels of support for same-sex marriage and for justice, equality, and dignity for gays and lesbians. See Jacob Poushter, “Before Pope's Comments, Latin American Catholics Expressed Acceptance of Homosexuality,” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, July 30, 2013, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/30/popes-comments-on-gays-have-support-within-his-flock/; Pew Research Center, “Gay Marriage Gains More Acceptance,” October 6, 2010, http://www.pewresearch.org/2010/10/06/gay-marriage-gains-more-acceptance/.

24 Ibid. at 1228, 1229.

25 Elise Labott, “Tweets Gone Wrong a Concern at State Department,” CNN (blog), December 10, 2012, http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/10/tweets-gone-wrong-a-concern-at-state-department/.

26 See Elizabeth Dovell, “Hate Speech Leads to Genocide,” World Policy Institute (blog), November 11, 2010, http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2010/11/11/hate-speech-leads-genocide; Kadim Shubber, “Crowdsourced Hate Speech Database Could Spot Early Signs of Genocide,” Wired.co.uk, April 5, 2013, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/5/hatebase. See also the work of the Voices that Poison project at http://voicesthatpoison.org, and the Sentinel Project at http://thesentinelproject.org.