The piquant thing about this episode is that the legislation involved was brought in as a way of moving away from the assumption that Ireland should privilege Catholicism - there wouldn't have been grounds for the prosecution previously, since he made no specific reference to Catholicism. But the change was intended to give all religions the same protection, and Stephen Fry, in his comments against religion in general, seems to have come up against it.

So it's an unintended result of an effort to get away from sectarianism.