Editing Blasphemy (section)

==History==

===Middle Ages===
[[Heresy]] received more attention than blasphemy throughout the [[Middle Ages]] because it was considered a more serious threat to [[Orthodoxy]],<ref>cf. Thomas Aquinas' ''Summa Theologiae''. ST II-II q10a3, q11a3, q12. Q11A3: "With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."</ref> while blasphemy was mostly seen as irreverent remarks made by persons who may have been drunk or diverged from good standards of conduct in isolated incidents of misbehavior. When the fundamental understanding of the [[sacred]] became more contentious during the [[Reformation]], blasphemy started to be regarded as similar to heresy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nash |first1=David |title=Blasphemy in the Christian World |date=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=4}}</ref>

The intellectual culture of the early English Enlightenment embraced ironic or scoffing tones in contradistinction to the idea of sacredness in revealed religion. The characterization of "scoffing" as blasphemy was defined as [[profanity|profaning]] the Scripture by irreverent "Buffoonery and Banter". From at least the 18th century on, the clergy of the [[Church of England]] justified blasphemy prosecutions by distinguishing "sober reasoning" from mockery and scoffing. Religious doctrine could be discussed "in a calm, decent and serious way" (in the words of [[Edmund Gibson|Bishop Gibson]]) but mockery and scoffing, they said, were appeals to sentiment, not to reason.<ref name=Frances/>

===Common law===
It was a [[common law]] crime according to [[William Blackstone]]'s ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'':

<blockquote>Blasphemy against the Almighty is denying his being or providence, or uttering conteumelious reproaches on our Savior Christ. It is punished, at common law by fine and imprisonment, for Christianity is part of the laws of the land".</blockquote>

In 1636, the [[Puritan]]-controlled [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] made blasphemy – defined as "a cursing of God by atheism, or the like" – punishable by death.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Williams Levy |first1=Leonard |title=Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rushdie |date=1995 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press Books |page=242}}</ref> The last person hanged for blasphemy in Great Britain was [[Thomas Aikenhead]] aged 20, in [[Scotland]] in 1697. He was prosecuted for denying the veracity of the Old Testament and the legitimacy of Christ's miracles.<ref name=truth>{{cite web|url=http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/thomasaikenhead.html |title=Thomas Aikenhead |publisher=5.uua.org |access-date=10 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001011446/http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/thomasaikenhead.html |archive-date=1 October 2011}}</ref>

In the United States, blasphemy was recognized as proscribed speech well into the 20th-century.<ref name="Harvard Law"/><ref>{{cite book |title=Church-State Issues in America Today (3 volumes) |date=2007 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=9781573567541 |page=18}}</ref> The Constitution entailed a right to articulate views on religion, but not to commit blasphemy, with the ''[[Harvard Law Review]]'' stating, "The English common law had punished blasphemy as a crime, while excluding "disputes between learned men upon particular controverted points" from the scope of criminal blasphemy. Looking to this precedent, 19th-century American appellate courts consistently upheld proscriptions on blasphemy, drawing a line between punishable blasphemy and protected religious speech."<ref name="Harvard Law"/>

The common law offences of blasphemy and [[blasphemous libel]] were repealed in England & Wales by the [[Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008]]. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this meant that promoting atheism could be prosecuted.<ref>Owen Chadwick, ''The Victorian Church: Vol 1 1829–1859'' (1966) pp 487–489.</ref> The last successfully prosecuted case was ''[[Whitehouse v. Lemon]]'' (1976) where the court repeated what had by then become a textbook standard for [[Blasphemy law in the United Kingdom|blasphemy law cases in the UK]]:<ref name=Frances>{{cite book |last1=Knight |first1=Frances |title=Religion, Identity and Conflict in Britain |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge}}</ref>

<blockquote>It is not blasphemous to speak or publish opinions hostile to the Christian religion, or to deny the existence of God, if the publication is couched in decent and temperate language. The test to be applied is as to the manner in which the doctrines are advocated and not as to the substance of the doctrines themselves.</blockquote>

The common law offense of blasphemy was abolished in Scotland via the [[Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021]].<ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2024 |url=https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/16 |access-date=3 April 2024 |website=gov.uk}}</ref>