Blasphemy is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for a religious deity or the irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy. Those laws may discourage blasphemy as a matter of blasphemous libel, vilification of religion, religious insult, or hate speech.

The word "blasphemy" came via Middle English blasfemen and Old French blasfemer and Late Latin blasphemare from Greek βλασφημέω, from βλάπτω = "I injure" and φήμη = "reputation". From blasphemare also came Old French blasmer, from which English "blame" came. Blasphemy: 'from Gk. blasphemia "a speaking ill, impious speech, slander," from blasphemein "to speak evil of."' "In the sense of speaking evil of God this word is found in Ps. 74:18; Isa. 52:5; Rom. 2:24; Rev. 13:1, 6; 16:9, 11, 21. It denotes also any kind of calumny, or evil-speaking, or abuse (1 Kings 21:10; Acts 13:45; 18:6, etc.)."

James "Jim" Jefferies (born 22 November 1950 in Musselburgh) is a Scottish football former player and manager currently at Dunfermline Athletic. Jefferies played for Heart of Midlothian for almost his whole playing career and enjoyed a successful first managerial spell with the club, winning the 1998 Scottish Cup. Jefferies has also managed Gala Fairydean, Berwick Rangers, Falkirk, Bradford City and Kilmarnock.

Jefferies made more than 300 competitive appearances for Heart of Midlothian. The main highlight of his playing career was playing in the 1976 Scottish Cup Final, which Hearts lost 3–1 to Rangers. Jefferies eventually left Hearts in 1981, and spent the last two seasons of his career with Berwick Rangers.

Jefferies left Berwick in 1983 to become a manager at East of Scotland Football League club Gala Fairydean, but returned to the club to begin his senior managerial career in September 1988. Despite a great deal of financial turmoil during that time, he turned the struggling team around to the extent that they set a club record of 21 games unbeaten in the league during season 1988–89. In the 1990 close season Jefferies took over at Falkirk, guiding them to the Scottish First Division title (and promotion to the Scottish Premier Division) in 1991 and 1994. Falkirk also won the Scottish Challenge Cup in 1993.

Ross Graham Bay is the current Bishop of Auckland in the Anglican Church of New Zealand since 17 April 2010.

Bay was educated in Papatoetoe and at the Bible College of New Zealand. He was ordained in 1989 and began his ministry with a curacy at Whangarei. Later he was priest assistant at St Matthew's, Auckland, and then vicar of Ellerslie. He became the vicar of St Mark's Remuera, in 2001 and was appointed Archdeacon of Auckland in 2006. His last post before being ordained to the episcopate was as the Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland.

Stewart Lee (born 5 April 1968) is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director. He made his name in the mid 1990s as one half of the radio duo Lee and Herring, a popular success followed through with extensive touring to built up a loyal live following. He gave up comedy in the early 2000s when he became disillusioned by the business and believed he was doomed to be a cult act with limited appeal who had reached the extent of any potential audience. Lee returned to stand up after co-writing and co-directing the surprise mock Broadway hit Jerry Springer - The Opera. Since then he has returned to the live circuit and though BBC and C4 specials and series, has rebuilt a niche audience and a reputation as an anti populist, anti "after the pub" comedian.

He remains a significant voice in UK stand up despite his refusal to appear on the panel shows that have seen many of his contemporaries eclipse him in ticket sales, if not critical acclaim. Although Lee's audience figures are comparatively low, he usually tours to 400-600 capacity venues and standing outside the comedy mainstream, he is well regarded by critics and has been a regular pundit on BBC political programming. In December 2011 he won the award for best male television comic for his series Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle which also won best comedy entertainment programme at the 2011 British Comedy Awards. A 2009 article in The Times referred to him as "the comedian's comedian, and for good reason" and named him "face of the decade". His stand-up features frequent use of "repetition, call-backs, nonchalant delivery and deconstruction", a device he jokingly ascribes to his tedious, exacting middle-class persona.

Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.

Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.