School’s out for “blasphemers”

Summer is nearly over, and school is back in session, but not for Enoch Burke.

A teacher at Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath, Ireland, Burke was arrested on Monday for refusing to endorse or affirm transgenderism. Burke is a Christian. “I’m standing up for my rights, for what I believe in,” he told reporters. “This isn’t a crime. It’s not an offence being here. It’s my moral duty to be here. … I am entitled to my religious belief, and I was told by the principal that I wasn’t allowed to have that religious belief anymore. That’s what it’s about.”

Burke’s troubles began in 2022 when he became outspoken against transgenderism, citing his Christian convictions. He refused to address students by their trans names or employ third-person pronouns. Following a suspension and investigation, Burke was fired. A restraining order resulted from his showing up to work anyway. He was given a 400-day prison sentence for contempt of court. Burke continues to collect his teaching salary while he appeals his dismissal.

Though clearly intended as a protest, Burke’s appearances outside his former school were not violent or disruptive, as can be seen in a video of him speaking outside the school last year. He has not been accused of abusing students or inadequate instruction of the same. Nevertheless, Burke was told that his presence was “stressful” for students and staff and posed a “health and safety” risk.

He was also fined 200,000 euros upon losing his defamation case against the Sunday Independent. The judge ruled that Burke’s public reputation was already too damaged for the newspaper to be guilty of libel, meaning, Burke, by then a notorious blasphemer against the rainbow cult, had no “good name” to tarnish. At bottom, it means that the Independent did not undermine public morality. Morbidly speaking, in this respect, the judge is clearly right. Burke is a threat to public order and morality, just not the kind of order and morality the West used to champion.

Burke was released from his first stint in prison only two months ago with the injunction that he was to stay away from his school. A fine of 700 euros per day was attached to any violation.

Judge Barry O’Donnell, who represented Tusla, an Irish child protection agency created by the Child and Family Agency Act 2013 and accountable to the minister for children, equality, disability, integration and youth, ordered the recent arrest.

Tusla promotes the full array of LGBTQ ideology, making, among other things, the affirmation of transgenderism a condition of foster parenting. The ministry over Tusla is professedly committed to LGBTQ inclusion across the board. Courts both in America and abroad inordinately defer to such agencies for standards and assessments of child well-being, as I’ve detailed elsewhere. If an agency like Tusla says affirmation of transgenderism is essential to child welfare, courts usually receive it as an “expert” fact, almost like taking judicial notice of an almanac.

The sexual revolution has subverted and confused the very idea of child protection, as it has so many things. Now, those who oppose the mental and genital mutilation of children are treated like predators. Assertions of biological and metaphysical reality are cast as corrupting the youth. Truly Orwellian stuff.

Burke’s case further demonstrates the impossibility of a rights absolutist position. There is always a limiting principle on rights. And that principle is informed by controlling conceptions of human good and morality. Health, safety, and morals are protected only according to their accepted understanding. The reputation and livelihood of citizens are defended from attack according to the same standard.

There is no neutrality here. There are always blasphemy laws—the protection of sacred things. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were condemned to burn for the blasphemy of thumbing their nose at the Babylonian cultus. Christ Himself was crucified for blasphemy, which is always coupled with subversion of public order. Speech, even in Ireland, is limited by defamation—except, apparently, in the case of people like Burke. The idea is that even journalistic speech cannot be leveraged to undermine public order or morality.

Disrupting the catechesis of the youth is especially offensive to any society and usually punished harshly because catechesis ensures the continuance of the established morality. That’s why Burke is shown no mercy.

Which morality? It’s no longer Christian, that’s for sure, despite Ireland’s recognition of the Trinity in its constitution. What is good is called evil, and what is evil is called good. Natural relations have been exchanged for the unnatural.

Civil authorities are charged by God to reward good and punish evil. To state the obvious, this requires knowledge of good and evil. When judges cannot or refuse to determine what a man or woman is, should we be surprised that they cannot rightly determine a child’s well-being?

Ironically, “blasphemy” is still punishable in Ireland to the tune of 25,000 euros for “grossly abusive or insulting” statements about religion that cause “outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.”

Indeed, that is what Burke was really arrested for.