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Georgia scraps bill outlawing “insult of religious feelings”

Feb 17, 2016 7:02 pm By Robert Spencer

This bill was designed to protect Christianity from criticism, but it is of interest here because other than this, only Muslims are pushing for such laws around the world. And this story neatly encapsulates what is wrong with such bills with a clarity and efficiency that mainstream media sources never bring to the discussion of proposals to criminalize “incitement to religious hatred,” which the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has been trying to get the West to do for years.

“The proposal to set fines for religiously insulting words and behavior was criticized for its potential to make the Georgian Orthodox Church, seen by many as the embodiment of Georgia’s national identity, all but immune to criticism.” Yes, just as religious hatred bills would make Islam immune from criticism, including regarding jihad terror.

Also: “Who can define religious feelings? What judge can rule on whether a certain action is insulting to someone’s religion?” Exactly. Muslim clerics have often characterized blasphemy laws and “religious hatred” laws as necessary to protect Muslims from “hurt feelings.” Grow up, already. Hurt feelings are as subjective as “hate speech,” and can become just as much a tool of tyrants.

Patriarch Ilya

An update on this story. “Georgia Scraps ‘Blasphemy Bill,’” The Muslim Times, February 17, 2016:

Georgia has dropped a proposed anti-blasphemy bill ardently opposed by freedom-of-speech activists. With a stated goal of protecting the feelings of Christian believers, the bill pitted civil liberties against faith in this passionately Christian nation.

The draft appeared to be causing a split in the ruling Georgian Dream coalition – never desirable in a parliamentary election year. Saying that the bill needs more work,parliamentarian Soso Jachvliani on February 15 withdrew his own proposal, which already had been conditionally approved by parliament’s human rights committee. Parliamentary Speaker Davit Usupashvili announced that the legislature has stopped discussion of the legislation.

The proposal to set fines for religiously insulting words and behavior was criticized for its potential to make the Georgian Orthodox Church, seen by many as the embodiment of Georgia’s national identity, all but immune to criticism. The Church earlier had asked for legal defenses against insults, but now distanced itself from the bill. The Patriarchy, the holy see of the Georgian Orthodox Church, is known for thin-skinned reactions to criticism and to any sort of irreverent take on Christian beliefs.

Some liberal clerics, however, spoke against the bill. One Georgian Orthodox priest in Germany described it as absurd. “Who can define religious feelings? What judge can rule on whether a certain action is insulting to someone’s religion?” Deacon Tamaz Lomidze asked in a recent sermon, PalitraTV reported.

A bishop from Georgia’s minority Evangelical-Baptist Church said that even Jesus Christ would get fined under such a law. “Jesus was doing lots of provocative things, spoke to women…the Holy Scripture is full of actions that would entail 300-lari penalties,” Rusudan Gotsirdize said in an interview for a Rustavi2 news-show….

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Filed Under: blasphemy, Featured, Georgia Tagged With: Georgian Orthodox Church


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Comments

  1. gravenimage says

    Feb 17, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    Georgia scraps bill outlawing “insult of religious feelings”
    …………………..

    Good for Georgia. As noted, only oppressive Islam benefits from such freedom of speech crushing blasphemy bills.

    Christianity itself is strong and open enough that it does not need such “protections”.

  2. sidney penny says

    Feb 17, 2016 at 8:01 pm

    “Georgia scraps bill outlawing “insult of religious feelings”

    What a great feeling.

    Yes “Hurt feelings are as subjective as “hate speech,” and can become just as much a tool of tyrants.”

    “tool of tyrants” and Federal Court judges Robert?

    What is a religious feeling?

    What is hate speech?

    Who decides what is a religious feeling?

    Who decides what is hate speech?

    OIC says wrong move

    • mortimer says

      Feb 17, 2016 at 8:26 pm

      US justice pronounced on the issue of ‘blasphemy’ thus:

      -Justice Clark in 1952 wrote: “…it is enough to point out that the state has no
      legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful
      to them. … It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real
      or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine.”
      -Justice Frankfurter noted that beliefs that are “…dear to one may seem the rankest ‘sacrilege’ to another,” and added concerning “sacrilegious” speech: “…history does not encourage reliance on the wisdom and moderation of the censor.”

    • Carolyne says

      Feb 18, 2016 at 2:23 pm

      Sidney Penney—Hate speech, like beauty, is in the beholder.

  3. mortimer says

    Feb 17, 2016 at 8:23 pm

    A leader of the Georgian Baptists said, “Jesus Christ would get fined under such a law”

    The British would arrest and fine Jesus today if he stood in front of various churches or synagogues or in front of Parliament and repeated His words in the New Testament!

    We cannot defend everyone from criticism or micro-aggressions!

    • ECAW says

      Feb 18, 2016 at 3:04 am

      “The British would arrest and fine Jesus today if he stood in front of various churches or synagogues or in front of Parliament and repeated His words in the New Testament!”

      Give us some examples.

      • More Ham Ed says

        Feb 18, 2016 at 6:21 am

        “Give us some examples.”

        Matt 23:1-12
        …

        3 “So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

        5 “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteriesa wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.”
        …

        How’s that for gettin’ some “insults” going in front of modern day “religious” “leaders” esp. in muslim (lowercase be upon them) countries.

        • ECAW says

          Feb 18, 2016 at 6:30 am

          And they will get you, or Jesus, arrested in Britain today? I don’t think so.

        • Aardvark says

          Feb 18, 2016 at 9:40 am

          I’m not so sure, ECAW. Remember that recently a man was arrested for quoting Sir Winston Churchill. It wouldn’t surprise me if those quotes from the New Testament were found to be equally offensive by Mr. Plod.

        • Pere LaChaise says

          Feb 20, 2016 at 12:30 pm

          Soso Jachvliani’s idiotic bill would have put Georgian clergy in the position of utmost hypocrisy, exactly that of the Temple clique against whom Christ himself preached. Obviously the parliamentarian has no grasp of Christianity’s actual content – that Christ offers a new life of freedom, that we despised and persecuted him, then killed him, but He rose in conquest of even death. Jachvliani thinks in terms of power and privilege, showing himself to be an utter child of this world, not a son of the Georgian Orthodox Church, which wants anything to do with the false privilege of legal protection from ‘hurt feelings’ – a notion which stems from worldly thinking and not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
          Obviously parliamentarian Jachvliani takes cues from Russia where the Church has been to varying degree subborned to the whims of state, since Tsar Peter abolished the Patriarchate and installed a lay overprocurator to treat church affairs as part of the running of the state. When Russia unilaterally annexed Georgia in the XIX c., the Russian Synod even absorbed (unilaterally) the Georgian Patriarchate, making the Patriarch-Katholikos a member as Bishop of Tiflis (what Russians call Tbilisi). The fall of the Romanov dynasty saw the freeing of the Church in Russia, and the Goerigan Church from the Russian Synod, but freedom soon turned into the nightmare of Bolshevik persecution. The second, Commnist Russian annexation of Georgia in 1921 saw the commencement of persecution of the Church there.
          Only since declaring its independence before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 has the Georgian Orthodox Church begun to function in a somewhat normal fashion in relation to civil society there.
          It is cheering to here how roundly rejected parliamentarian Soso Jachvliani’s idiotic proposal has been by both civil and religious opinion. Hopefully the country will stay Christian – the only faith where God is insulted to His glory – and reject worldly temptation to enjoy insulation from critique. Georgia is not Russia, and it is certainly not Iran.

  4. Vlad says

    Feb 17, 2016 at 9:13 pm

    Jesus actually got crucified for offering opinions that conflicted with the prevailing religious views of his time.

    Just goes to show you, “RELIGIOUS VIEWS” OF MOOSLIMES must not be be allowed to become law.

  5. DaveJ says

    Feb 17, 2016 at 9:59 pm

    A propensity to “hurt feelings” is what the uber Liberals and Muslims have in common.

    United in Victimhood! And this means every one else must submit…

    • Pere LaChaise says

      Feb 20, 2016 at 12:37 pm

      Exactly! The way of the world and it’s ruler is NOT the way of the Cross. Those who depend on laws to protect their feelings about religion are slaves to the state, defined by secularity.
      We must always remain aware of the worldly captivity of Islam, how it conforms to the basest of worldly impulses, vaulting carnality as godliness to the ignorant who are always seeking validation in this world.
      Without the Scandal of the Cross – Jesus reviled, unjustly,persecuted YET NOT CALLING DOWN DIVINE VENGEANCE ON THOSE WHO HATED HIM, BUT RATHER INTERCEDING FOR THEIR FORGIVENESS – Christianity is nothing, as oppressive as political correctness and the hypocrisy of Islam.

  6. خَليفة says

    Feb 17, 2016 at 11:24 pm

    If a person truly has faith in their religion, then nothing anyone says or does will affect them.
    People who are confident in their ideas will not be discouraged or swayed by those who critisize them.

    Islam does not believe in “free will” most other religions do
    Islam teaches followers to be impulsive and self gratifying – other religions teach patience and self sacrifice

    A Jew, Christian, Hindu, Budhist , Jane, … will let God decide another’s punishment.
    A Muslim feels it’s his job to punish non-Muslims, like, right now ( i.e. wants to do God’s job right now )

    Name someone or something that wants to be God? Satan.

  7. Carolyne says

    Feb 18, 2016 at 9:10 am

    If Obama is not prevented from nominating the next Supreme Court Justice, he will appoint a person who is pro-Islam and anti-free speech. We will have the First Amendment destroyed and forums such as Justice Watch will be shut down by the government. The Second Amendment will also be abrogated and the US population will be disarmed and rendered helpless in the face of the Muslim assault.

  8. Pong says

    Feb 18, 2016 at 5:30 pm

    Georgia has 10% moslem minority, mostly concentrated in the region of Adjaria in the west part of the country. Most of them are the converts from christianity during the time of Persian domination (shah Abbas).
    It is exceptionally beautiful country with very good food and fantastic vines. The language is nothing like any others and the national costumes are very interesting. It is a place, though civilized, has many historic and cultural traditions. Highly recommend to visit. Hospitality is exceptional.

    • Kepha says

      Feb 19, 2016 at 9:20 am

      Georgia also bequeathed to the world Iosip Stalin [Dzhugashvilli] and Lavrenti Beria. I suppose that even a pleaasant garden must have its weeds.

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