Denis Lemon, editor of Gay News
after his blasphemy conviction in 1977
© PA/EMPICS

Few writers will lament the demise of the blasphemy law, which is widely seen as archaic. No one has gone to prison in the UK for blaspheming since John Gott did nine months hard labour in 1922 for comparing Jesus to a circus clown. The last British blasphemy prosecution was in 1977, when 'decency campaigner' Mary Whitehouse sued the magazine Gay News for printing a poem about a Roman centurion having sex with the crucified Christ. Amid a huge media outcry, editor Denis Lemon was convicted and given a suspended prison sentence. The case galvanised free-speech campaigners, who demanded the law be abolished.

Thirty years on, the government plans to do just that. But it also wants to bring in a new offence of incitement to religious hatred. The justification is that an incitement law would close a loophole that currently allows people (usually white racists) to demonise other faith groups (usually Muslims). There's no need to worry about censorship, the government says, because the Attorney General will prevent abuses of the law.

However, many writers, artists and performers believe that free speech is under threat. Rowan Atkinson, who is leading a campaign against the proposal, argues that the right to free speech should be absolute in an open society, and should definitely include the right to offend. Philip Pullman warns that religious tribalism is on the rise in the UK and that the incitement law will encourage the trend.

Strong feelings

The debate is passionate. Last winter, conservative Christians lobbied vigorously against the BBC to try and stop it screening Jerry Springer the Opera, which they considered blasphemous. They failed to stop the broadcast but did pressurise a children's cancer charity into returning a donation that had come from the stage show. In Birmingham, Sikhs demonstrated so violently against Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's play Behzti ('Dishonour'), which dealt with a rape in a Sikh temple, that the theatre cancelled the show out of fears for people's safety and Bhatti went into hiding.

The closing of Behzti had alarming echoes of the persecution of Salman Rushdie by Muslim extremists following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses in 1988. Threatened with death after Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa against him, Rushdie was forced to spend years in hiding, with government-supplied bodyguards.

Even if a law of incitement does not encourage extreme reactions, campaigners argue, the mere threat of a lawsuit is likely to limit artistic expression. 'Theatres and publishers ... won't take the risk,' says Philip Pullman, 'and books or plays that question or criticise religious belief will vanish quietly from sight.'

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