Whereas individuals, by virtue of being human, have the universal right to free speech and to dissent;

Whereas individuals, by virtue of being human, have the universal right to choose their own beliefs about religion, or to reject religion and voice their objections peacefully;

Whereas oppressive governments have used and still use religion as a weapon against political dissidents;

Whereas throughout history, religious criticism and dissent have been necessary to curb the excesses of religious authority;

Whereas the Catholic Church might still be selling indulgences if Martin Luther had been preventing from nailing his protest to the church door;

Whereas the abolition of slavery in most of the world was aided by outspoken critics of religion such as Thomas Paine and the marquis de Concorcet;

Whereas historically, many early supporters of human rights, such as Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, William Penn and Roger Williams were vocal critics of religion;

Whereas advances in science would have been impossible without religious defamers such as Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei and Frances Bacon;

Whereas people born in Muslim countries have the same universal human right to apostasy as everyone else;

Whereas Muslims have the same universal human rights to improve upon their religion as anyone else;

Whereas the Armenians have the human right to speak out against the genocide of their ancestors at the hands of Muslim Turks; and sympathetic Muslims have the right to express their support;

Whereas religious minorities, (including Christians, atheists, Muslim apostates and others), are denied these rights and unfairly subjected to censorship, prison, torture or death;

We, the undersigned, oppose the U.N. resolution entitled Combating Defamation of Religion as being both bad for religion and bad for human beings.


(Background: The UN resolution being opposed is here (see esp. point 10): http://www.eyeontheun.org/assets/attachments/documents/HRC_4th_session_defamation_of_religion_3-23-07_draft_res.DOC)