Following the trail

One knew this excited billing from National Review's The Corner had to mean trouble -

Leo Roars [Stanley Kurtz]
John Leo may have retired his column at U. S. News, but he’s still very much at work. Witness Leo’s superb new piece from City Journal, “Free Inquiry? Not on Campus.” ... It is entirely plausible to imagine that the sort of radical paring back of free speech we’re already seeing in Europe (another story chronicled by Leo) could happen here as well. Irish priests threatened with prosecution for quoting the Pope’s opposition to gay marriage.

Really? Onwards to Leo's column more in hope than expectation of a cite or a source --

Things are no freer across the pond. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties announced that it would prosecute any priests found distributing or quoting the pope’s words forbidding gay marriage.

No source, no date. And an incoherent sentence, since "The Irish Council for Civil Liberties" can't prosecute anyone, that duty falling to the, er, Director of Public Prosecutions. But anyway, where did this tale begin? A bit of Googling leads back to August 2003, in the Irish Times (subs. req'd) --

Legal warning to church on gay stance
Liam Reid

Clergy and bishops who distribute the Vatican's latest publication describing homosexual activity as "evil" could face prosecution under incitement to hatred legislation.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has warned that the language in the 12-page booklet is so strong it could be interpreted as being in breach of the Act.

... According to the document, Catholic teaching states that while homosexuals should be treated with "respect, compassion and sensitivity", homosexuality was "objectively disordered" .... Ms Aisling Reidy, director of the ICCL, warned yesterday that the statement could be in violation of the 1989 Incitement to Hatred Act. Those convicted under the Act can face jail terms of up to six months.

"The document itself may not violate the Act, but if you were to use the document to say that gays are evil, it is likely to give rise to hatred, which is against the Act," according to Ms Reidy. "The wording is very strong and certainly goes against the spirit of the legislation."

So even the statement from the ICCL (which in this case was a little naive in not seeing how it would feed the right-wing spin machine) acknowledges the slim basis for a potential prosecution given the need to show intent to cause hatred, as opposed to simple dissemination of Church teaching on homosexuality, including the advocacy of compassion to all.

But anyway, how did this travel from a relatively obscure article in the Irish Times to being on the list of international anti-free speech outrages? Step forward Mark Steyn, who apparently was actually reading the paper for which he was then a syndicated columnist (before getting replaced by Charles Krauthammer) --

If you live pretty much anywhere in the western world these days, you'll notice a certain kind of news item cropping up with quiet regularity. The Irish Times had one last week. As Liam Reid reported, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties has warned Catholic bishops that distributing the Vatican's latest statement on homosexuality could lead to prosecution under the 1989 Incitement to Hatred Act, and a six-month jail term.

Once with Steyn, the tale was home free, circulating 4 years later as evidence of the threat from rampant civil libertarians, second only to the threat from al Qaeda.