What the history of US blasphemy laws and the fight for religious freedom can teach us today

Some 79 countries around the world continue to enforce blasphemy laws. And in countries like Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, violating these measures can result in the death penalty.

While the United States is not one of these countries, it also has a long history of blasphemy laws. Many of the American colonies passed blasphemy laws that became state laws. It wasn’t until 1952 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that blasphemy was a form of protected speech. Even then, she wasn’t always protected.

As an expert in religious and political rhetoric, I believe the history of U.S. blasphemy laws reflects a complex struggle for freedom of religion and expression.

Early US blasphemy laws

American colonies often developed legal protections for Christians’ practice of their religion. These protections often did not extend to non-Christians.

Maryland’s Toleration Act of 1649, for example, was the first colonial law relating to the “free exercise” of religion and was intended to protect Christians from religious persecution by state officials. However, this “free exercise” of religion was not extended to non-Christians, but rather it was declared that anyone who blasphemed God by cursing him or denying the existence of Jesus could be punished with death or the loss of their land to the state .

In 1811, the United States experienced one of its most infamous blasphemy trials: People against Ruggles, at the Supreme Court of New York. New York resident John Ruggles received a three-month prison sentence and a $500 fine – about $12,000 in today’s money – for publicly declaring, “Jesus Christ was a bastard and his mother must be a whore.” “

Chief Justice James Kent argued that people have freedom of expression, but opinions that are detrimental to mainstream Christianity are an abuse of that right. He claimed that similar attacks on other religions such as Islam and Buddhism were not punishable because “we are a Christian people” whose country does not rely on the teachings of “these impostors.”

A few years later, in 1824, a member of a debating society was convicted of blasphemy by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after saying during a debate: “The Scriptures were a mere fable, a contradiction, and that, although they were a “Contained a number of good things, and yet they contained a great many lies.” In this case – Updegraph v. Commonwealth – The court argued that it was a “completely shocking and offensive” statement that constituted “the highest offense” against public morals and constituted a disturbance of “public peace.”

At the end of the 19th century, a prominent freethinking movement began to form that rejected religion as a guide to reason. The movement’s leaders welcomed public criticism of Christianity and called for laws that favored Christians, such as blasphemy laws and mandatory Bible readings in public schools.

As historian Leigh Eric Schmidt has noted, it is not surprising that speakers and authors in the movement were regularly threatened with accusations of blasphemy.

At this point, however, judges appeared to grant leniency even in cases where freethinkers were convicted of blasphemy.

In 1887, CB Reynolds, a former preacher who became a prominent freethought speaker, was convicted of blasphemy in New Jersey after publicly doubting the existence of God. He faced a $200 fine and up to a year in prison. However, the judge only fined Reynolds $25 plus court costs.

Although it is unclear why Reynolds was granted leniency, historian Leonard Levy suggests that this may have been so that his imprisonment would not make Reynolds a martyr to the freethought movement.

Protect blasphemy as free expression

Growing demands for religious equality and freedom of expression increasingly influenced blasphemy cases in the 20th century.

In 1917, for example, Michael X. Mockus, who had previously been convicted of blasphemy in Connecticut for his freethinking lectures, was acquitted in a similar case in Illinois.

While expressing distaste for blasphemy, Judge Perry L. Persons argued that the court’s job is not to determine which religion is correct. He said that “the Protestant, the Catholic, the Mormon, the Mahammedan, the Jew, the freethinker, the atheist” must “all stand equal before the law.”

Then, in 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson after New York revoked the license for the film “The Miracle”. The film was considered sacrilegious because it allegedly mocked the Catholic faith.

The Supreme Court ruled that states could not ban sacrilegious films. That would be a violation of the separation of church and state and an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

Even after the Supreme Court decision, Americans continued to face occasional charges of blasphemy. But the courts rejected the charges.

When Irving West, a 20-year-old war veteran, told a police officer to “get your damn hands off me” after a fight in 1968, he was charged with disorderly conduct and violating Maryland’s blasphemy law. When West appealed, a district court judge ruled that the law was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.

Despite these rulings, Pennsylvania passed a blasphemy law in 1977 that banned businesses from using blasphemous names after a local businessman tried to name his gun shop “The God Damn Gun Shop.” It wasn’t until 2010 that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declared this law unconstitutional.

The decision followed a case in which the owner of a film production company sued the state after his application to register his business under the name “I Choose Hell Productions, LLC” was rejected on the grounds that it was blasphemous. Citing the year 1952 Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson In that case, the judge ruled that the law was a violation of First Amendment rights.

A sign of democratic freedom

As historian David Sehat points out in his book The myth of American religious freedom, Since America’s founding, there have been strong disagreements about what religious freedom should look like. Blasphemy laws were a key part of this conflict.

Historically, many Americans have viewed the laws as justified. Some believed Christianity deserved special protection and reverence. Others, including some founding fathers such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, viewed these same laws as unconstitutional restrictions on free speech and religious expression.

Recently, the rise of Christian nationalism, the belief that the United States is or should be a Christian nation, has received increasing attention. Amid this surge have been attacks on free expression, such as the increase in book bans and restrictions on public protests. I believe it is important that we as Americans learn from this history of the fight for freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

Kristina M. Lee is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of South Dakota.

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