Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Catholic doctrine criminal in Ireland
I found this on Gay.com UK, so the language may be a bit distorted (e.g the phrase 'the Pope's anti-gay document...) but still worth a post:
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties says it will prosecute any priests found distributing or quoting the Pope’s anti-gay document for hate crimes.
Any clergy found handling the 12-page document, released last week as a statement of the Catholic Church’s response to gay marriages, will face charges under the country’s hatred legislation reports suggest.
Although the document itself is not illegal, it could lead to an increase in hatred, the Council said, and by stirring up hatred in the parish, the clergy could face jail terms of six months.
According to their website the Irish Council for Civil Liberties is an independent governmental organisation promoting and defending human rights and civil liberties.
Update: Here is the same news from Irish Times quoting Ms Aisling Reidy, director of the ICCL:
The document itself may not violate the Act, but if you were to use the document to say that gays are evil, it is likely to give rise to hatred, which is against the Act. The wording is very strong and certainly goes against the spirit of the legislation.
Dear Sir/Madam,
It has been brought to my attention that a report in the Irish Times on Sat 2 August has received widespread coverage and dissemination on web sites including yours, and I would therefore like to bring a clarification to the attention of any of your readers.
Despite the spin in the paper, we did not issue a press statement or a legal warning to the Catholic Church. We were actually contacted by the paper and asked to comment on the legal position of the document released by the church in relation to the existing Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. As I said, we did not issue a statement on it and have no intention of pursuing any legal action against the Catholic Church. The 1989 act states:
2.—(1) It shall be an offence for a person—
( a ) to publish or distribute written material,
( b ) to use words, behave or display written material—
(i) in any place other than inside a private residence, or
(ii) inside a private residence so that the words, behaviour or material are heard or seen by persons outside the residence,
or
( c ) to distribute, show or play a recording of visual images or sounds,
if the written material, words, behaviour, visual images or sounds, as the case may be, are threatening, abusive or insulting and are intended or, having regard to all the circumstances, are likely to stir up hatred.
And "hatred" means hatred against a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community or sexual orientation;
That is the Act that I was asked to comment on and I noted that it is possible that the document could be interpreted as breaching these standards. I also said that the document itself is likely not to be a problem, but if the words in it were used in an active campaign to condemn gays as evil and a threat to children, then that could be interpreted as likely to cause hatred.
I never said that the Vatican intended to incite hatred, but the strong words of the document could lead to problems.
I hope this clarifies the matter. Also to confirm, the ICCL fully supports equal rights for all irrespective of sexual orientation and has and will continue to campaign for full recognition of same sex unions.
Thank you for your time,
Aisling Reidy
Director, ICCL
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