Blasphemy Conviction for Displaying Rainbow Virgin Mary at "Equality March" in Poland

From press accounts, this appears to be the image involved.

 

Notes from Poland (Daniel Tilles) reports:

A court has found two women guilty of offending religious feelings – a crime in Poland that carries a prison sentence of up to two years – for displaying an image of the Virgin Mary and Jesus with rainbow haloes during an LGBT march.

One was handed five months of community service while the other was fined 2,000 zloty. The pair's lawyer has, however, announced their intention to contest the judgement, as they are entitled to do, meaning the case would proceed to a full trial….

Last year, the same court in Częstochowa acquitted a man who had also been indicted for offending religious feelings by displaying an image of the Black Madonna with rainbow colours added.

The judge found that the symbol contained a positive – not an offensive – message supporting equality and opposing discrimination. In another case, three LGBT activists were acquitted of the same offence in 2021 for producing and distributing images of the "Rainbow Virgin Mary"….

Comments

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Yes, Pogo would have exclaimed, "That's blastphemious."

[Krychek_2]

Among the other objection to blasphemy laws, it strikes me that it is unfair to allow one side -- religion -- to use the state to punish speech that offends it, all the while saying all kinds of offensive things about people they disagree with, in this case gays. If you're going to punish people for insulting religion, then you need to also punish religion when it insults other people. If that street is going to be constructed it needs to be a two-way street.

[Nige]

The point of streets like that is always to be rigorously one-way.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Yeah, because “religion” (whatever the fuck you mean by describing religion as an single entity) is a homogeneous block of - well, something - that thinks and acts as a single organism where one part of it is responsible for the actions of another part of it. It’s not made up of individual people who might disagree on stuff - thinking of it like that would make thinking much harder.

Your assertion is such a ridiculous over generalization that it’s hard to describe the degree to which it is ridiculous.

And some on the left keep swooning over how fab Europe is even though their abortion laws are tougher than ours and people keep getting punished for things we take for granted to be civil rights.

[Nige]

Europe actually consists of different countries, Bevis. And it's not the specific religion, it's the law that makes blasphemy as determined by that religion illegal.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Yeah doofus we all know that Europe is lots of different countries. That’s a wonderfully brilliant point to make. Most of them have blasphemy laws and tougher abortion limits than we do.

And you’ll never understand this but the second half of your last sentence contradicts the first part of it.

[Nige]

'Most' of them don't, something like 14 countries, which is too many, and US abortion laws are pretty liberal, except in red states, obviously. Let me explain again, slowly about the other point - it could be *any* religion that has its idea of blasphemy enshrined in law, and it's bad. I'm sorry, what were you whinging about again?

[Krychek_2]

Bevis, I really hope you feel better now that you have that out of your system.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Poland is one of the most Catholic countries in Europe.

Kinda like Saudi Arabia and Islam. How well would a picture of Mohammed with a rainbow around him go over down there?

[Michael Ejercito]

Their ways are not our ways.

For that, we are grateful.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If your god teaches you to make the lives of gay people more difficult, you picked a particularly shitty, paltry (not to mention illusory) god.

[EscherEnigma]

Now remember folks: there are politicians in America who read stories like this and go "what's stopping us from doing that here?" and don't understand you when you say "the First Amendment".

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's more the 14th Amendment -- never forget that many states, including Massachusetts, were de-facto theocracies well into the 18th Century.

It was that no OTHER state would use the Federal Government to impose ITS religion on your state.

[John F. Carr]

"The pair's lawyer has, however, announced their intention to contest the judgement, as they are entitled to do, meaning the case would proceed to a full trial"

We used to have a system like that in Massachusetts District Court (lower trial court). First you tell it to the judge. If the judge finds you guilty you can request a jury trial. The two trial system was abolished effective 1994.

Were I the judge, I would be so tempted to say "Guilty! I sentence you to burn in hell for all eternity! Now get out of my court."