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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-03-10 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 01:06 pm (UTC)I mean, it wouldn't be unreasonable that they DID, in advance, come up with a standard for determining what new tickyboxes they would have, and then reasonably decided to stick to it even when the jedi thing happened, just so they didn't risk their own bias affecting the results by choosing which religions "counted" and which didn't. But I agree that it's probably more sensible and more likely that they used their common sense (or some research) to establish that for all practical purposes Jedi is NOT a real religion.
I always find it ironic/sad that people object when someone in an organisation uses their common sense and discretion right. I agree granting people discretion to asusme what is a real religion and what isn't is a risk, but to me it seems a good one: I don't have any particular evidence that the census people will disenfranchise an actual religion. And it seems premature to panic about that when there's lots of things the government are ALREADY doing wrong, or are exercising discretion in a way which is EXCEPTIONALLY PRONE to going wrong later. Times when they used common sense and got it right seem to me to be... you know, ok :)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 01:22 pm (UTC)But I bet that they did, in fact, count under Other.
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Date: 2011-03-09 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 04:03 pm (UTC)If you don't mind me asking, how culturally Christian is she? Does she ever go to church (even at Christmas)? I'm curious as to what she means by the phrase more than "I was subjected to RE in school, and can't get it out of my head."
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 04:18 pm (UTC)That's a lot more sensible than a lot of the people who seem to identify as Christian but never even go near a church outside of funerals/weddings.
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Date: 2011-03-09 04:35 pm (UTC)Also I think there are probably people who aren't especially clear on what they do believe, and not unreasonably view themselves as Christians because "they always have been".
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Date: 2011-03-09 04:48 pm (UTC)It's people who have a vague idea that Christianity is what people are, because they were dragged to church when they were a kid, and so tick that, despite not actually having religious beliefs, that bother me. Largely because they distort the figures.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 04:32 pm (UTC)http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=954
No religion includes people who ticked 'None' at the religion question plus those who wrote in Jedi Knight, Agnostic, Atheist and Heathen and those who ticked 'Other' but did not write in any religion.
So the ONS interpreted "Jedi" as a joke by agnostic/atheist types and boxed it accordingly.
They don't give a full list for "other" but do have
In England and Wales, 151,000 people belonged to religious groups which did not fall into any of the main religions. The largest of these were Spiritualists (32,000) and Pagans (31,000), followed by Jain (15,000), Wicca (7,000), Rastafarian (5,000), Bahà 'ì (5,000) and Zoroastrian (4,000).
I don't know what they would do with other fake religions like Pastafarianism.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 11:50 am (UTC)This utterly pointless comment brought to you by my deisre to leave a comment on Andrew R's post despite the blogging platform.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 12:42 pm (UTC)Apparently no longer.
Also - the "send responses to me" bit only appears after you've posted your comment - how useless is that??
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Date: 2011-03-09 12:18 pm (UTC)Very nice article, although I don't entirely agree on the State's 'disinterest' with unions not likely to produce children. Firstly, particularly with changes to adoption laws and the existence of turkey basters same-sex couples may well produce children, and secondly, I don't think it's true that that's the State's only investment in romantic partnerships, as evidenced by the very existence of CPs. Although I suppose the Tories might be swinging back in that direction...
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 12:22 pm (UTC)As an aside, what happened to the LDs campaigning for gays to just be able to get married? That would sort of circumvent the issue, wouldn't it?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 12:45 pm (UTC)http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/17/civil-partnerships-marriage
So we get the "civil partnerships can be religious" stuff soon, and the other stuff once the Daily Mail has had its chance to scream about it.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 01:00 pm (UTC)Yes :->
Of course, marriages tend to be recognised overseas, whereas civil partnerships aren't so much. Although that will probably slowly change as well...
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 12:38 pm (UTC)If marriage rules only affected things to do with children, they'd have a point, but they cover a lot more than that, so they don't.
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Date: 2011-03-09 12:32 pm (UTC)I suppose this is just another of the "many bites at the cherry" argument, where the No to AV camp claim that people who vote for minority parties have their vote counted many times, which is unfair - ignoring the obvious point that their votes are counted many times and lose every single time, and the only time their vote actually matters in the last count, where it almost certainly gets redistributed to a major party.
But it's especially daft in the context of "Tories worry that they'll never be a majority government again", as the BNP's second preferences would almost certainly go to the Tories. In the context of AV, the Tories should want the BNP to do well! As long as they never out-vote the tories in first preferences, they should be safe.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 01:15 pm (UTC)From first-hand experience, you can't, in England, have songs or readings at a civil ceremony that even mention the word "God" and no doubt a list of other religiously-affiliated words. Not even stuff like "for god's sake" (yes, precisely this prhase debarred a poem from being used at a civil cermony).
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 04:23 pm (UTC)I rather like that song. One of my exes used to play that album a lot.
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Date: 2011-03-09 04:59 pm (UTC)I understand the silliness of a blanket OTT ban - saves endless arguments over edge cases.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 06:14 pm (UTC)