The right to offend religious sentiment is a necessary part of a free society where we are not subject to religion. So, when Humanists UK protest about a recent ruling by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority, I might be expect to join in. But I’m not.
“Demi Lovato must have the right to blaspheme”, declares Stephen Knight, a writer I usually agree with. But a right to blaspheme is not the same as the right to display a blasphemous poster on an advertising billboard in a public place. I will strongly defend the publication of Charlie Hebdo cartoons, but that doesn’t mean they would be appropriate on billboards in Piccadilly Circus.
The standard for acceptable advertisements is tighter than for publication in one’s own magazine or on one’s own website. That’s because the public encounters adverts when going about their daily life. They aren’t opting in to seeing them, as they would be when picking up a copy of Charlie Hebdo. As a result, the Advertising Standards Authority requires that adverts not cause “serious or widespread” offence, taking into account “prevailing standards in society”. The threshold will, of course, be subjective, but the ASA take their role seriously, including the polling of public opinion.
The advert in question, for an album by Demi Lovato, depicts the singer in a sexualised pose while wearing bondage gear. That alone makes the advert questionable. According to ASA polling, objections to sexualised images are the most common form of objection to adverts. Then there is the album’s name, “Holy Fvck”, alluding to a swear word that many would regard as inappropriate for a public billboard. Further, the combination of these items with a crucifix, a symbol strongly associated with Christianity, would indeed offend people.
This perfume advert was banned by the ASA owing to the perceived sexualisation of a young model.
Perhaps that offence is the whole point of the album’s title and artwork, which would be absolutely fine in itself. “Corruption of youth” is, after all, the raison d’etre of rock music. But the ASA ruling is not an imposition of a blasphemy law, no-one is objecting to the album or to its art-work, only to its display on an advertising billboard. And in that the ASA is just upholding a generally applicable standard.
I reject the idea that religious groups have any special right to not be offended, but, equally, nor should offense to religious sentiment be discounted as less important than offense for any other reason. If the ASA would ban an advert because it is offensive to Manchester United football fans, then it is appropriate to ban an advert that is offensive to Christians.
Adverts by the fashion group French Connection UK were widely accepted but did arouse comment.
Humanists UK are calling this a “de facto blasphemy law”, and are petitioning the ASA that “religious offence should never be grounds to ban an advert”.
But do they think that offensiveness should never be a consideration in banning an advert, or are they asking for religious offence to be a type of offence that is specially disregarded?
I can’t agree with either. Yes there needs to be a threshold of offensiveness for adverts, and, since religious people are our fellow citizens, their sentiments should count equally to those of others. Traditionally, of course, religion has had way too much special privilege (and still does), but we shouldn’t now advocate for religious beliefs to be treated worse than other beliefs.
Provided that the ASA try to apply the rules neutrally — so that religious and non-religious forms of offence are weighed equally — I’m comfortable with their ruling that this advert fell on the wrong side of the line.
coelsblog 
The ‘right’ to offend other people’s religious feelings is a miserable way of damaging collaboration and interpersonal support in contemporary societies. This neoliberalism’s slogan has done a big damage to human progress, When someone offends your values and sacred feelings, you don’t like it. How dare you to do the same to others? The popular cartoons about islam testify that their authors are not more clever and more educated than the people they laugh about.
We have to accept people causing offence, especially offending religious people, otherwise anyone could shut down any criticism of their religion simply by claiming to be offended. That, indeed, is exactly why (for example) Muslims are so quick to get offended: because they’re trying to prevent anyone criticising their religion. And yes, free speech will mean that people will get hurt feelings, but accepting that is just a part of being a grown up.
Formally, in accordance with neoliberalism principles, you are right. But I would prefere not to incite the events that happened after the publication of caricatures. If someone is educated, knows and understands a bit more than some others, he would be silent. If the educated one is on the same level, he would say anything he knows and receive the consequencies… We know that God’s existence isn’t proved but, IMHO, we shouldn’t teach the faithful insulting them.
It was educated people with knowledge and understanding who criticised religion during the European Enlightenment, providing the foundation of our current freedoms and prosperity in a society that is not under the subjegation of religion. Sadly, much of the Islamic world has not yet gone through that, and so has much less prosperity and freedom.
And the cartoons and those who drew them were not “inciting” the violent response (to “incite” something one needs to ask for and desire it). Rather, the violent response was entirely the responsibility of those who reacted violently, and of the backwardsness of their religion.
No one forces Muslims to buy and read Charlie Hebdo. And I’d guess that very few do so. Probably only those with a religious chip on their shoulders who look for something to be offended about and who look for any excuse for violence would care what is written in such publications. In a free society, free speech touching on religion in such publications must be allowed even though it may strike the adherents of a certain religion as blasphemous. They can avoid being offended. They don’t have to buy and read such magazines. Whereas the very life of a free society depends on such free speech in publications like Charlie Hebdo.
However, there are cases where free speech needs to be limited where offence will be caused, where it is designed to provoke offence, and where that offense cannot be avoided by the religious. For example, if I paid for a billboard to be erected next to a church or a mosque with words like “Jesus is just a fairytale’ or “Mohmmed is a myth” that would cross the line. I don’t think my billboard should be allowed. It would be provocative and cause unnecessary offence and would do nothing for the atheist cause or for the notion of free speech. It would offend the religious and, with the billboard right next to the church or mosque, such offence could not be avoided by them.
Therefor, a line must be drawn somewhere between the right to free speech on the one hand and on the other, causing unnecessary and deliberate provocation of groups who cannot avoid being unnecessarily offended by the speech. The advertisement for the album in question, showing a woman in sexualized pose on a cross with the words “HOLY FVCK” crosses that line. It is an advertisement people may not be able to avoid seeing as they go about their daily lives and, to me, it seems deliberately provocative.
That said, the response by the religious to cartoons in Charlie Hebdo – murdering people – was totally out of proportion and unjustified. That response must be, and was, opposed by most of the sensible people of France and free societies elsewhere. It crossed the line in the other direction – line that must be held at all costs.
I agree that what is on a public billboard, where the public will see it as they walk by, is very different from what can be published somewhere where you only see it if you look for it.