Irish Political News

[ED: Sorry comments left closed by mistake. Now open.] Following Rowan Williams lecture on Tuesday about the blasphemy law, Dave Walker has a piece on some of the reactions to it. Here’s my take. As someone with a full-time job, I don’t have the 3 days necessary to grapple with every sentence in the AB of C’s lecture. It is what it is: a lecture, not an article in the Sun. It’s all the more disappointing that some of the reports and reactions don’t take this into account. The Times report gives just as much airtime to Terry Sanderson, the president of the rent-a-quote National Secular Society (membership 7,000), who called the lecture a ‘blatant pitch for new legislation to replace the blasphemy laws’. Sorry Mr. S, but the one thing you can’t accuse Rowan Williams of being is blatant. Nuanced, dense, impenetrable even (I don’t know if this got a laugh at the lecture - at one stage he restates one of his phrases ‘in plainer English’), but not blatant. Jerry Springer the Opera 1, Church of England 0? Williams basic argument seems to be that the blasphemy law is finished, but that we do need to provide some sort of protection against religious abuse. Hence he has been shot at by American conservatives for being limp on the blasphemy law, and by secularists for wanting to protect religion. But judging by the picture, he’s still smiling. (more…)