Manfred Van H. - United States of America

United States of America

Main article: Blasphemy law in the United States of America

A prosecution for blasphemy in the United States would fail as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . . ."

Because of the First Amendment's protection of free speech and religious exercise from federal interference, and the Fourteenth Amendment's extension of those protections against state regulation, the United States and its constituent state governments may not prosecute blasphemous speech or religious insults and may not allow civil actions on those grounds. In Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New York could not enforce a censorship law against filmmakers whose films contained "sacrilegious" content. The opinion of the Court, by Justice Clark, stated that:

"from the standpoint of freedom of speech and the press, it is enough to point out that the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views. 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."

It should be noted, however, that the United States and some individual state jurisdictions provide for stronger criminal penalties for crimes when committed against a person because of that person's religious affiliation. For instance, Section 3A1.1 of the 2009 United States Sentencing Guidelines states that: "If the finder of fact at trial or, in the case of a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, the court at sentencing determines beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally selected any victim or any property as the object of the offense of conviction because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person," the sentencing court is required to increase the standard sentencing range.