Apart from all the well-known Anti-European resentments, all the unfair and prevaricated election campaigns – e. g., Sinn Fein actually announced the Easter Rising heroes would have died for nothing if the Lisbon treaty was accepted – there are some decisions in this country’s politics that simply appear to come from medieval times:

Ireland just passed a law that criminalizes freedom of speech by making blasphemy a criminal offense, regardless of the religion affected. (Does Scientology count, by the way?) Offenders face an up to 25,000 € fine. Unbelievable.

As my (Irish) flatmates say, the government probably just needed something to distract people from the fact that Ireland’s economy is still struggling, even worse than most other European ones, and thus found new topics outside anything that could be linked to the recession.

Anyway – as Richard Dawkins put it, this is truly a step back to middle ages. Sad for Ireland. But taking a look back at my hometown, where people who say out loudly that “there is probably no God” get nothing but pure hatred back from those oh-so-tolerant Westphalians, I can only conclude: Those Christians must truly be scared of other people’s beliefs.

Read more about it at UK’s Guardian.

Add.: This is what The Irish Independent’s Ian O’Doherty has to say:

So, here we go — Catholicism is a cannibal cult which eats its leader, Jews who believe that God wants them to settle in the Holy Land are deranged lunatics, Muslims who wants to install Islamic law are nothing but fascist terrorists and Scientologists are nothing but a bunch of brainwashed weirdos who have been suckered by the malicious rantings of a failed science-fiction writer.

Alright lads, I’ll see you in court.

(Photo credit.)