Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2008, explains why the current UK blasphemy laws, being relatively toothless, should be replaced by laws to protect religious groups against “thoughtless or cruel” criticism:

The law cannot and should not prohibit argument, which involves criticism, and even, as I noted earlier, angry criticism at times; but it can in some settings send a signal about what is generally proper in a viable society by stigmatising and punishing extreme behaviours that have the effect of silencing argument. Rather than assuming that it is therefore only a few designated kinds of extreme behaviour that are unacceptable and that everything else is fair game, the legal provision should keep before our eyes the general risks of debasing public controversy by thoughtless and (even if unintentionally) cruel styles of speaking and acting.

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2007, explains why church-run adoption agencies should be allowed to break UK anti-discrimination laws and deny adoptions to gay couples:

…rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well-meaning.