One again, P.Z. Myers brought to my attention [scienceblogs.com] a recent issue of importance to atheist rights I have somehow overlooked. Back in November, the United Nations passed a nonbinding resolution [canada.com], pushed by Islamic countries, urging member states to make blasphemy – that is, anything viewed as criticism of religion, especially Islam – illegal. According to a recent report by CNNs Lou Dobbs, the U.N. general assembly is now considering a new resolution making this binding on member states, which would include us here in the United States. In the video (also imbedded below), Christopher Hitchens and others are interviewed on the subject, and they unsurprisingly are not for it.
Canada gave a great response to the original nonbinding resolution (emphasis added):
“Canada rejects the basic premise that religions have rights; human rights belong to human beings,” said Catherine Loubier, spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon.
“The focus (here) should not be on protecting religions, but rather on protecting the rights of the adherents of religions, including of people belonging to religious minorities, or people who may choose to change their religion, or not to practice religion at all.”
The recent CNN report quotes the U.S. government’s response to the proposed binding resolution:
While appearing in name to promote tolerance, the implementation of this concept actually fosters intolerance and has served to justify restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms.
There is no group whose rights would be more damaged by this than atheists, considering that the only reason one would reject a religion is that one has criticisms of it. Therefore, atheists would be legally barred from expressing their views of religion. Of course, this would not only violate the freedom of conscience (and if in the United States, freedom of speech rights) of atheists, but also any member of a religion who wishes to criticize another religion. This resolution would also violate basic freedom of religion, since part of many religious dogmas is the criticism of other religions.
Of course, if a binding resolution is passed, there is no chance the United States would give in to it. This resolution goes directly against the most fundamental freedoms we have, both as to speech and religion. The Canadian response has categorically denied that religions themselves have rights, only the humans who are members of such religions. It couldn’t be clearer that Canada would no more roll over and accept such a disgusting, anti-freedom demand than the U.S. would. It will be interesting, though, to see exactly how the U.S. and Canada do react if this resolution is passed.
Doug Wildman
on Mar 14th, 2009
@ 12:45 am:
I hope not. Imagine what would happen if the governmentstarted telling people what they could and could not say? As a Christian, I would be opposed to anything which limits freedom of ideas/free speech.