Stephen Fry "Proud To Have Played Small Part" In Changing Blasphemy Law

Stephen Fry has applauded how a resounding majority of 951,650 Irish citizens voted in favour to remove the bizarre crime of blasphemy from our constitution in last week's referendum, which ran alongside the presidential election.

A debate about changing the blasphemy law was first sparked in 2017 when it emerged that the Gardai were forced to launch an investigation after one single TV viewer claimed comments made by actor/comedian Stephen Fry on Gay Byrne's RTE show The Meaning of Life were blasphemous.

"I feel very proud to have had a small part to play.... I'm not an Irish citizen, and it's not necessarily my business to tell Irish people how to vote, but I did tweet my support for it," Stephen Fry said during a new interview with Ryan Tubridy.

During the interview with Gaybo back in 2015 on his 'The Meaning of Life' show, Stephen Fry described God as "capricious", "mean-minded" and "stupid".

A member of the public then made an official compliant under the controversial blasphemy law, which was introduced in 2010 as part of the Defamation Act.

It was an incident that grabbed International headlines, putting Ireland in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Recalling the interview that prompted the controversy and then prompted the Irish government to hold the subsequent referendum last week, Stephen Fry told Tubs: "He's a lovely man Gay, he's a national treasure in Ireland. "I had done the Late Late many times. When I heard he was doing this more intimate interview, I was very pleased to do it, and he very sweetly suggested to do it at 1 Merrion Square, which is where Oscar grew up, and we chatted.

"Then he just threw in this last question, 'Suppose you're wrong, suppose there is a God, what would you say to him?'

"And so, without getting all academic, it's called the argument from evil. So I sort of said "I would be furious with God, what the hell have you been thinking about? If you are the all powerful God, you needn't have created the world in which children get bone cancer. There's no good from such a thing, there's nothing but pain and suffering. It makes no sense, how dare you treat us like that and how dare you make us fall on our knees and praise you everyday.

"I hadn't meant of course to offend or upset individual people's faith because their faith is much stronger than anything I can say. I think it's an interesting one."