'No God' advertisements banned from city buses in Italy
Italians are a pretty feisty lot:
"Italian atheists have lost a bid to run "no God" advertisements on city buses after strong opposition from conservative political parties. The ads reading "The bad news is that God doesn't exist. The good news is that you don't need him" were to have been put on buses in the northern city of Genoa, home to the Catholic cardinal who is head of the Italian Bishops Conference.
The mock-up was ready and the contract was sent to the group for signing but the publicity agency changed its mind and said the ad could not run it because it violated an ethics in advertising code, according to Giorgio Villella of The Italian Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics (UAAR).
"Right-wing politicians criticised us ferociously," Villella said by telephone from the group's base, adding that at least one bus driver in Genoa said he would refuse to drive a "no God" bus. "It's strange that in a country where ads depicting near-naked women wearing skimpy lingerie is permitted on buses that we can't run ads about atheism," Villella said.
Villella said the group's lawyers would likely file an appeal to a court to overturn the decision and that the group would try to run the ads in other Italian cities.
Source
I guess that there is no right to insult Christianity in Italy -- though there seems to be such a right in America. Christians are heavily attacked for criticizing homosexuality in North America but criticizing Christianity is just fine. Sounds like it is the other way around in Italy. The Pope certainly does not mince words about homosexuality.
I gather that, as with the USA, Italy has constitutional protections for free speech. Sad that there is no free speech on many issues in either country.
10 comments:
Does not the Pope have a responsibility to condemn homosexuality, just as jews condemn the Nazi's?
Apparently, with so many countries turning toward socialism, (and as of jan. 20th, the US included) the athesists feel this is their best chance to push their anti-God, anti-religion agenda on people in many places.
"Freedom of Speech" are just so many empty words in so-called democratic countries that feign belief in that principle in theory but not in practice if it goes against majority opinion.
btw. the Vatican may lie inside Rome but it is a separate sovereign state to Italy.
"If it goes against the majority opinion"?
Are you under the impression that America still uses the concept of majority rule? Where have you been! The majority no longer rules anything, especially themselves.
So John - are you for the ads or against them?
Surely this site must be:
a) for the right to publish such ads, but
b) for the right of private companies not to have to display them.
Am I right???
In many countries (including, AFAIK Italy where Catholisism is the official religion) sacrilege is a crime, and atheists are guilty of sacrilege by their very nature because they deny the existence of God (if that ain't sacrilege, I don't know what is, unless it's praying to Jesus as if he were a god rather than to God).
Pope benedict XVI is German
The Vatican is a seperate State.
Ergo, Italian laws do not apply.
I can't see how western countries that call themselves free and democratic, and who criticize other countries as "police states" or theocracies, can themselves have laws like "blasphemy" and criminalize mere expressions of opinion about religion or events in WWII (like Holocaust denial) - when such opinions do not directly incite violence or slander or libel a named person. It is the slippery slope to criminalizing criticism of the government.
Blasphemy in many countries is illegal for mainly historical reasons.
The head of state is (or was) the head of the church, therefore blasphemy was an insult to the Royal, which is high treason, punishable by death.
Those laws have typically been watered down to just a fine with the abolishment of capital punishment (and in some cases royalty).
IMO however blasphemy is extremely bad manners, just as is cursing.
Holocaust denial OTOH is always meant to incite violence, as it's universally applied in an effort to either incite violence against Jews or to at the very least defend such violence.
Blasphemy frequently has a similar purpose, intending to incite hatred of and violence against religious people (and especially Christians).
So you are saying the publishers of the Danish cartoons should have been punished as it could be seen as insulting a religion and likely to lead to violence which it did. The intent to incite violence must be clear in what is said or published. What may constitute blasphemy may be as little as a sexual poem as was the case brought against an obscure gay magazine read by paying subscribers - who were hardly likely to attack the nearest christian. A clever lawyer might make any statement appear as an incitement to violence.
If laws of blasphemy are meant to prevent violence or insult, then that should be covered by other laws about inciting violence or criminal activities or slander/libel against a named person. Laws of blashemy are creating a special protection for a special class, and many posters here object to that when it concerns "hate crime" laws and gay rights and other minority rights, so it shouldn't apply to religious groups either.
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