How a Comedian Pushed Ireland Into a Referendum on Blasphemy
Stephen Fry called God “stupid” in an interview three years ago. Now voters are headed to the polls.
On Friday, Irish voters will participate in their second referendum of the year—this time, to decide whether to remove a prohibition against blasphemy from Ireland’s constitution. Like the decision in May to overturn a ban on abortion and the 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage, this vote stands to shift the country away from its traditionally Catholic heritage.
The referendum, which coincides with Ireland’s presidential election, will ask voters whether they support removing the word from Article 40 of their constitution, which states that “the publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, projects that slightly more than half of the public will support scrapping the offense, with a quarter still undecided.
