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Anti-blasphemy laws are unconstitutional
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The state of Pennsylvania, among others, has a law against blasphemy. This law is now being challenged:
Back in the fall of 2007, with only the most practical motives in mind, George Kalman took his pen to the standard form for creating a limited liability company in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Kalman had already formed one such corporation for his information-technology business and now wanted the same status for his sideline as a filmmaker, the better to write off expenses on his income taxes.
The first line on the document asked Mr. Kalman to supply his chosen corporate name, and he printed it in: I Choose Hell Productions, LLC. In a personal bit of existentialism, Mr. Kalman believed that, even if life was often hellish, it was better than suicide.
A week later, the daily mail to Mr. Kalman’s home in the Philadelphia suburb of Downingtown brought a form letter from the Pennsylvania Department of State. His corporate filing had been rejected, the letter explained, because a business name “may not contain words that constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing or that profane the Lord’s name.”
WHAT? You have got to be kidding!
Never mind that Devil Media and Satanic Butt Slayers were given corporate desgination by the state of Pennsylvania....
George Kalman filed suit to have the state law struck down as unconstitutional.
According to Sarah Barringer Gordon, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, anti-blashphemy statutes remain on the books in Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wyoming in addition to Pennsylvania. Several of the state statutes outlaw verbal attacks on God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost and “Scripture.”
I have a big problem with this. The United States has a formal separation of church and state, first off. Also, considering the diversity of religious beliefs in this country, why is blasphemy defined in Christian terms?
Pennsylvania's law is not some vestige of days gone by: It was enacted in 1977! Regarding the statute:
The statute provides no guidance on what exactly constitutes profaning the Lord’s name. Nor does it specify who will make that decision, or how it will be made.
“The fact that there’s some bureaucrat in Harrisburg who decides what’s blasphemous is outrageous,” said Thomas H. Lee II, a lawyer with the firm of Dechert LLP, who is handling the case for the A.C.L.U. pro bono.
As for the plaintiff, Mr. Lee added: “Whose Lord are they talking about? There are Lords in so many religions in the world.”
Mr. Kalman sums up his position nicely:
“When you read the First Amendment, this is something you can be proud of,” he said. “If you care about the human condition, then you care about the First Amendment.”
The government should not, must not, be involved in defending religious doctrine or imposing religious beliefs on its citizens.
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Atheism Examiner Trina Hoaks reported on this story back in February, and DC Secular Examiner Paul Fidalgo has also given his take on the story.
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