The human right to blaspheme.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Briefly Noted - The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in the Age of Human Rights - Brief article - Book review

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"No one has the right to a world in which he is never despised," writes philosophy professor Austin Dacey in his insightful book The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in the Age of Human Rights (Continuum).

Dacey, who represents the International Humanist and Ethical Union at the United Nations, notes that blasphemy, once a sin against God, has been transformed into a crime against believers' sensibilities. His disturbing analysis traces how various U.N. resolutions demanding "respect" for religions, as well as court decisions and laws in many European...