Well, no actually. They’ve just passed in to law a bill that it’s now a crime in Ireland to produce or say anything “that is 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 he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.”

Mediawatchwatch goes further, explaining that “publicly making a claim about Jesus which is later proven to be untrue could land you in trouble”. Oh crap. So a bunch of fairy stories with no evidence are presumed to be true? How the fuck does that happen? Oh, wait. Alternative medicine. Never mind.

Update: Very nice commentary from Spiked.

It’s all OK though, we have the virgin Mary appearing in a tree stump. So that’s all right then. I just typed that as Vogon Mary. Oops. Am I now under threat of prosecution in Ireland?

Kinda puts abusive priests into perspective. Or is accusing pedophile priests itself now blasphemous? They are, after all, directly blessed descendents of Peter. Or something.

Luckily we have Spain. A devoutly catholic country, it has in recent years has legalised of gay marriage, introduced so-called “express divorce” laws and the dropped of plans to make religious classes part of the school curriculum. How cool is that?

Luckily, as always, we have Jesus and Mo to set us right. Never mind “God is great”, the Guinness is indeed great.