Blasphemy law in the United States

Blasphemy laws

In 2009, The New York Times reported that Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania had laws that made reference to blasphemy.{{cite web | access-date = 4 September 2009 | archive-date = 30 September 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170930180308/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/us/21religion.html?em | url-status = live

The remaining 6 laws referencing blasphemy are as follows:

• Massachusetts (Massachusetts Revised Statutes, Ch. 272 § 36)
• Michigan (Michigan Compiled Laws, §§ 750.102-750.103)
• Oklahoma (Oklahoma Statutes, tit. 21 §§ 901-905)
• Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Consolidated & Unconsolidated Statutes, tit. 19 § 17.5)
• South Carolina (South Carolina Code of Laws, § 16-17-520)
• Wyoming (Wyoming Statutes, § 1-29-106)

Active laws

Massachusetts

For example, Chapter 272, Section 36 of the Massachusetts General Laws – a provision based on a similar colonial-era Massachusetts Bay statute enacted in 1697 – states:

Michigan

Michigan's law reads as follows:

History: 1931, Act 328, Eff. Sept. 18, 1931 ; CL 1948, 750.102 Former Law: See section 17 of Ch. 158 of R.S. 1846, being CL 1857, §5872; CL 1871, §7707; How., §9293; CL 1897, §11706; CL 1915, §15480; and CL 1929, § 16832.

Secondarily, there is an "anti-profanity" law, which includes "blasphemy" elements, and reads as follows.

History: 1931, Act 328, Eff. Sept. 18, 1931 ; CL 1948, 750.103 Former Law: See section 18 of Ch. 158 of R.S. 1846, being CL 1857, §5873; CL 1871, §7708; How., §9294; CL 1897, §11707; CL 1915, §15481; and CL 1929, § 16833.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma's law reads as follows:

The subsequent 2 sections exempt serious discussion from it and define it as a misdemeanor.

The next section bans blasphemous swearing:

Acc. to the subsequent section, it's punished with a $1 fine for each instance.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's law doesn't establish any punishments for blasphemous speech and merely bans blasphemous naming of corporations and association:

In 2010, it was found unconstitutional by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania after a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

South Carolina

South Carolina's law doesn't punish blasphemous speech except when it's intended to disturb or interrupt public or private religious gatherings:

Wyoming

Wyoming's law prohibits publication of blasphemous speech/material (online media, print media, literature, TV and radio public broadcasting, etc.):

Defunct laws

Maine

Maine's law read as follows:

It was repealed by Public Law 1975 during the Maine Criminal Code Revision.

Maryland

The history of Maryland's blasphemy statutes suggests that even into the 1930s, the First Amendment was not recognized as preventing states from passing such laws. An 1879 codification of Maryland statutes prohibited blasphemy:

According to the marginalia, this statute was adopted in 1819, and a similar law dates back to 1723. In 1904, the statute was still on the books at Art. 27, sec. 20, unaltered in text. As late as 1939, this statute was still the law of Maryland. But in 1972, in Maryland v. Irving K. West, the Maryland Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) declared the blasphemy law unconstitutional. This law was repealed by the acts of 2002 effective as of October 1, 2002.

Prosecutions for blasphemy

Massachusetts

The last person to be jailed in the United States for blasphemy was Abner Kneeland in 1838 (a Massachusetts case: Commonwealth v. Kneeland). From 1925, the Supreme Court applied the Bill of Rights to all states.

In February 1926, Lithuanian-American Communist Anthony Bimba was charged in Brockton, Massachusetts with blasphemy under a law passed during the time of the Salem Witch Trials more than two centuries earlier, as well as sedition. A widely publicized week-long trial followed, during which Bimba's attorney likened atheism to religious belief and maintained that individuals had a right under the United States constitution to believe or disbelieve in the existence of a God. Bimba was ultimately found not guilty of blasphemy but convicted of sedition, for which he was fined $100.

Maine

In 1921, Lithuanian-American Michael X. Mockus was convicted in Maine. He appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine on March 25, 1921 in State v. Mockus and lost the appeal.

Arkansas

The last known U.S. conviction for blasphemy was of atheist activist Charles Lee Smith. In 1928, he rented a storefront in Little Rock, Arkansas, and gave out free atheist literature there. The sign in the window read: "Evolution Is True. The Bible's a Lie. God's a Ghost." For this he was charged with violating the city ordinance against blasphemy. Because he was an atheist and therefore could not swear the court's religious oath to tell the truth, he was not permitted to testify in his own defense. The judge then dismissed the original charge, replacing it with one of distributing obscene, slanderous, or scurrilous literature. Smith was convicted, fined $25, and served most of a twenty-six-day jail sentence. His high-profile fast while behind bars drew national media attention. Upon his release, he immediately resumed his atheist activities, was again charged with blasphemy, and this time the charge held. In his trial he was again denied the right to testify and was sentenced to ninety days in jail and a fine of $100. Released on $1,000 bail, Smith appealed the verdict. The case then dragged on for several years until it was finally dismissed.

Overturned blasphemy laws

New York (1952): ''Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson''

The U.S. Supreme Court in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952) held that the New York State blasphemy law was an unconstitutional prior restraint on freedom of speech. The court stated that "It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches or motion pictures."

Pennsylvania (2010): ''Kalman v. Cortes''

The Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted a blasphemy law in 1977, that forbade corporations from incorporating names containing words that "constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing, or that profane the Lord's name." In 2007, filmmaker George Kalman had filed a limited liability company named I Choose Hell Productions, LLC. A week later he had received an unsigned letter explaining that his application was rejected because his company's name could not "contain words that constitute blasphemy." In February 2009, Kalman filed suit to have the provision against blasphemy struck down as unconstitutional. During the trial, Kalman explained that at one point he had become suicidal and felt he had to choose between death and hell. This became the inspiration for naming his film company, stories that he would tell about how to choose life. On June 30, 2010, U.S. District Judge Michael M. Bayslon of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in a 68-page opinion, ruled in favor of Kalman, finding that Pennsylvania's blasphemy statute violated both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

References

References

1. Kalman v. Cortes, 723 F. Supp. 2d 766
2. "Michigan Legislature Section 750.102".
3. "Michigan Legislature Section 750.103".
4. (1921). "State v. Mockus".
5. https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/17/title17ch19.pdf {{Bare URL PDF. (November 2025)
6. "Blasphemy Laws" in Gordon Stein, editor, ''The Encyclopedia of Unbelief'', p. 61. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1985.
7. "Kneeland, Abner" in Gordon Stein, editor, ''The Encyclopedia of Unbelief'', pp. 379–380. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1985.
8. "Blasphemy" in Tom Flynn, editor, ''The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief'', p. 147. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007.
9. Jennifer Ruthanne Uhlmann, ''The Communist Civil Rights Movement: Legal Activism in the United States, 1919–1946.'' PhD dissertation. University of California, Los Angeles, 2007; p. 110.
10. William Wolkovich, ''Bay State "Blue" Laws and Bimba: A Documentary Study of the Anthony Bimba Trial for Blasphemy and Sedition in Brockton, Massachusetts, 1926.'' Brockton, MA: Forum Press, n.d. [1973]; p. 75.
11. Wolkovich, ''Bay State "Blue" Laws and Bimba,'' p. 114.
12. Theodore Schroeder. (1919). "Constitutional Free Speech Defined and Defended in an Unfinished Argument in a Case of Blasphemy". [[Free Speech League]].
13. "Smith, Charles Lee" in Gordon Stein, editor, ''The Encyclopedia of Unbelief'', pp. 633–634. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1985.
14. 15 Pa. Cons. Stat. §1303(c)(2)(ii)
15. 723 F. Supp. 2d 766
16. [http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/10D0634P.pdf Kalman v. Cortes] {{Webarchive. link. (2011-06-01 , 723 F. Supp. 2d 766)
17. [http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/10D0634P.pdf Kalman v. Cortes] {{Webarchive. link. (2011-06-01 , 723 F. Supp. 2d 766.)
18. See amicus brief, filed 12/24/09 for Case No. 2:09-cv-00684, accessible at https://jmp.sh/N28dBN3 {{Webarchive. link. (2022-07-06 .)