Entry 4 Amendment 1

Source: Law Banning Blasphemy Is Upheld in Indonesia. August 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/world/asia/20indo.html?ref=freedom_of_religion

Constitutional Connection: Amendment 1, Freedom of Religion, Press, and Expression.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech"
                                       
Explanation of Connection:

         In Indonesia there Constitutional court has decided that a law banning unreligious people that curse god is constitutional. Now that they have a law it allows them to ban religious groups that don’t represent their faith or that doesn't represent god. If anyone is found guilty of committing this "crime" they will be sentenced up to five years in prison because of the law there can only be six recognized religions. Some of the six religions are Islam, Catholicism, Buddhism etc; the law was made to go against Islam because more than 70 percent of Indonesia's people are Muslim. The court's chief justice argued that the new law did not go against the Constitution which gave people all around the world freedom of religion.

         This article clearly represents Amendment 1 from the Constitution because Amendment 1 guarantee’s the people of the U.S freedom of religion but many people around the world do not go by what is in the Constitution. Although in the article the people of Indonesia does not go by the Constitution it still is in action because the Islam people who are being subjected to crime still fight back and go against what the Indonesia's Constitutional court says. In the constitution under Amendment 1 it guaranteed the people freedom of religion, in the article the people of Indonesia had received freedom of religion until the constitutional court decided a law should be passed to not give the people freedom of religion. The people of Indonesia had fought back against this law and hopefully this law will change soon.

         My opinion on this article was that the constitutional court was wrong for making a law banning blasphemy of their faith and god. I feel this way because everyone doesn’t believe in the same thing always and everyone is obligated to serve less than one religion. I also didn't understand how the Indonesia's court chief justice could come up with such a law when the Constitution insured everyone freedom of religion. This is an important topic and I think that people should look more into this issue to change what is going on in Indonesia.