Thursday, February 14, 2008

“God Does Not Need Protection”

As a stratagem to encourage censorship of the Mohammed cartoons and other materials they deem offensive, Danish Muslims are in the habit of citing Denmark’s blasphemy law to support their case.

In the wake of the latest Motoon crisis, the leaders of the Danish People’s Party and the New Alliance have joined forces to advocate the repeal of that blasphemy law.

Our Danish correspondent TB has translated an article about the issue from Avisen.dk:

Khader and Kjærsgaard: Stop protecting God.

Naser Khader and Pia Kjærsgaard are making a joint effort against the Danish blasphemy laws. God does not need protection, they argue.

Naser Khader is ready to go along with the Danish People’s Party on a suggestion to get rid of the paragraph about blasphemy.
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“In the year 2008, I don’t think that we need a paragraph that protects God. If DF [Dansk Folkeparti, Danish People’s Party] agrees, we can make a joint proposal suggesting that we get rid of that paragraph,” Khader says, according to nordjyske.dk.

Earlier DF had argued in favor of deleting the paragraph, and Kjærsgaard is happy about the support from Khader.

“If Khader can fully accept what we proposed earlier, I can see no reason whatsoever not to cooperate. We would like to put it on the table again. Against the background of all the terrible things that have happened lately, it would be very fine to have a debate in Folketinget (parliament),” Pia Kjærsgaard says, according to nordjyske.dk

I reported last week on the two recent defections from Naser Khader’s party, which eliminated any need for the government to curry favor with New Alliance.

Naser Khader formed his party as a counterweight to the dreaded Danish People’s Party, and yet now he finds it expedient to announce a joint venture with them against the blasphemy law.

A reed in the wind.

5 comments:

laller said...

Socialist Peoples party(Socialistisk Folkeparti(SF)) has also joined in the call to repeal the blasphemy law.

Devilfish said...

Funny coincidence, because in the Netherlands a member of the Socialist Party(SP) also proposed to get rid of the blasphemy law. It's about time...

kepiblanc said...

Maybe SF - correctly - sees it as superflous in the near future, when Denmark comes under the new EU Constitution (a.k.a. the Lisbon Treaty) and any - any - remark critical towards Islam will be a felony and severely punished (remember Britain and Lionheart, eh?) - And on a related note, SF - once a pacifist party - now wants Denmark to join EU's military arm! - Hence the party's new name: "Waffen-SF".

Epaminondas said...

Not only does God require no protection, He (or She) requires NO RELIGION.

Men do.

X said...

@Epa: According to my bible, God has a great deal of faith in us (lets face it, only a being capable of infinite compassion would be able to carry on believing we'll do the right thing in the face of so much evidence to the contrary) so it's only fair to return the favour. :)

Of course, faith and religion are different things.

We have a blasphemy law in the UK as well, dating from the days when it was generally accepted that everyone was at least nominally christian. Was it enforced? Not much. Mostly it was used against errant priests and the nobility as a stick to keep them in line; the yeomanry were assumed to be coarse and base and so incapable of sticking to the rules, whilst the nobility and the priesthood were held to a far higher standard. Plus it was useful to accuse rivals of blasphemy now and then. Sort of the equivalent of actors dragging each other and the media to court for libel...

Facing the fact that Islamists are using the presence of blasphemy laws to push their own agenda I'd rather see it scrapped. Christians don't need the crutch of the state to protect their faith in God and, for non-believers, the idea of a blasphemy law is more than a little anachronistic.