Ireland flirts with a vulgar anachronism

[entitoid]

August the 24th, the savior year of 2009...Several centuries after the dark ages, Ireland decides it may need to return there by re-introducing a law about "blasphemy" imposing fines up to 25.000 Euros for (hear, hear) :
 "anyone who "publishes or utters matter that is [intentionally meant to be] grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion."
    And, what would a good anachronism be if not accompanied by some real nice Big Brother measures, the new law will allow police with a search warrant to be able to enter private premises and use "reasonable force" to obtain incriminating evidence.
    Not bad, eh? Criticize some god and  go bankrupt through fines. Yep, it's divine...
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1922201

[Simon]

Surprised to read that article.  The bill has not yet gone through and might be a throwback to some old law that they just didn't debate, so it might yet be repelled.  Would be a crying shame if Ireland started heading backwards like this.

[Miamibabe]

This is just tabloid journalism again.  It would seem the law was updated because of a court case a number of years ago.  There is no chance of it being enforced and this is another example of the tabloids trying to sell papers.

[Brandon]

But why does the law exist if it's not intended to be enforced?

Unnessary laws that resrict freedoms are dangerously things. Maybe nobody in the current administration would even dream of such a thing, but it's sitting there nice and ready for if someone gets into power and does want to use it.