[tweetle_beetle]

That's a bit flippant. Of course every culture has a prevailing moral code, but blasphemy was a tool developed to prevent the rise of religious institutions that threatened the power of the Catholic church with, among other things, brutal capital punishment. After a few hundred years this basis was no longer relevant, and by the 1900s it was just used to occasionally pearl clutch in the public eye, long after the (new) church genuinely felt threatened.

However ham-fisted this new law is, attempts to prevent:

> prejudice on the basis of age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or variations in sex characteristics (sometimes described as "intersex" physical or biological characteristics).

, that's to say things which you cannot choose (except religion), is a pretty major change from protecting the official state religion du jour - not just a straight swap.

[exporectomy]

> things which you cannot choose (except religion), is a pretty major change from protecting the official state religion du jour

It's a big change from protecting the official state religion du jour to protecting the official state morality do jour?

It isn't even about prejudice which will already be illegal for discrimination in hiring, etc. It's simply about saying things which might make other people feel "bad" feelings. Pretty similar to offending a religious person by saying their God is wrong. That stirs up hate too and it deeply hurts people.

[tweetle_beetle]

> It's a big change from protecting the official state religion du jour to protecting the official state morality do jour?

Yes and I think I already explained how I believe that to be the case.

But to expand it to your example, how does an attempt to improve prejudiced actions against all people of faith, sexual orientation, etc. support a state institution? What is the ulterior motive and which power structure is benefitting from it? From what I can see - none. It's just a change in society's morality.

[MikeUt]

> attempts to prevent [prejudice] is a pretty major change from protecting the official state religion

Blasphemy laws weren't justified on the basis of protecting a religion, but to safeguard souls from being led astray into eternal damnation, or to stop the spread of harmful immoral activity. They were to serve the greater good, just like this law.

[tweetle_beetle]

I disagree that blasphemy was to serve the greater good. This implies that extreme actions carried out in the name of theology are made in good faith [sic], without ulterior motives outside theology.

Excommunication was a perfectly good threat if the aim was genuinely to safeguard souls. The ulterior motive behind the escalated punishment and law, was the potential risk of allowing people to live their lives outside the church, or as part of another religion - an existential threat to the dominance of the Catholic church as an institution.

[MikeUt]

> I disagree that blasphemy was to serve the greater good.

It was justified on that ground. That doesn't mean there was no ulterior motive.

[tweetle_beetle]

Agreed. That's more or less the basis of what I have said in all my comments in this thread. Maybe adding the word "designed" or "intended" into my comment would have made that clearer.

But this doesn't respond to the main point I was trying to make - this new law is not just a "switch from one god to another".