  BlasphemyReligious organisations are amongst the most vocal pro-censorship pressure-groups, and art depicting irreverent images of religious icons attracts sustained controversy, though legal suppression on the grounds of blasphemy is surprisingly rare. Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses (1988), for instance, resulted in a fatwa against the author following worldwide Muslim opposition to the book's thinly-veiled depiction of Mohammed. Also, the international Muslim community also protested against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which commissioned twelve Mohammed caricatures in 2005, prompting other newspapers and magazines to print further Mohammed cartoons in solidarity. Neither of these instances resulted in legal action in Europe or America. In 1989, Nigel Wingrove directed an erotic film inspired by the sexual fantasies of Saint Theresa, a sixteenth century nun. In the film, Visions Of Ecstasy, Theresa writhes on top of an unresponsive Christ while he is nailed to the cross. Wingrove submitted the film to the British Board of Film Classification seeking to release it on video. However, the BBFC refused to classify the film as they considered it potentially blasphemous - despite having passed Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation Of Christ (1988), with its dream sequence featuring sex between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, uncut the year before. Significantly, the BBFC is not in a position to proclaim material blasphemous in any legal sense, though they can refuse to classify material they deem to be potentially blasphemous. Wingrove took their decision to be a violation of his freedom of expression, and appealed to the High Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Neither appeal was successful, though the film can now be distributed without fear of prosecution since the UK blasphemy laws were repealed in 2008. Jens Jorgen Thorsen's Jesus Vender Tilbage (1992) is another film representing Jesus as sexually active, and in Matthias VonFistenberg's Passio (2007) Jesus is gay. Christ also appears in the gay porn film Him (Ed D Louie, 1974). Bill Zebub's films Into Thy Hands (advertised as Jesus Christ: Serial Rapist, 2004) and The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made (2005) both feature Jesus as a rapist. 
Blasphemous LibelIn 1976, Gay News published James Kirkup's poem The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name, which describes a Roman centurion's sex with Christ's corpse. Mary Whitehouse, who led a Christian pressure-group campaigning for morality in the media, brought a private prosecution against the magazine accusing them of blasphemous libel. The editor, Denis Lemon, was found guilty and given a suspended prison sentence. After an appeal to the House of Lords by Lemon and his publisher, the sentence was overturned though the conviction was not, and a subsequent appeal to the European Court of Human Rights was also unsuccessful. The poem finally became legally available following the repeal of the blasphemy laws in 2008. The poem's final stanza is as follows:
"And then the miracle possessed us.  |