Census Campaign (UK)

[sashajwolf]

The British Humanist Association is running a campaign to encourage people who do not practise any religion to tick the "no religion" box in our forthcoming census, rather than either ticking a religion that they identify with culturally, or writing in a protest answern such as "Jedi" (as happened last time, when the question was first asked). A comparison with other surveys suggests that because of the phrasing of the question, "cultural Christians" who do not actually practise may have accounted for around half the people ticking "Christian" last time round, which in turn was used to justify anti-secular policy decisions. I'm posting the link here because I think it's an excellent campaign site and provides a good illustration of how thinking of "Christian" as the default category can disadvantage others. There is also some allusion to the problems caused by trying to fit Jews and Sikhs into neat boxes marked "ethnicity" and "religion" (given that "Jewish" is used with both ethnic and religious meanings within the Jewish communities themselves as well as by non-Jews, and "Sikh" is often understood as an ethnic label by non-Sikhs in the UK, although I don't think that Sikhs themselves commonly use it in that way.)

(This particular census question is optional. As a Christian whose current practice is drawn about equally from Christianity and a yogic practice that has a strong Hindu influence, I'm unsure whether the best course in order to avoid giving further ammunition to discriminatory policies is not to answer, or to tick "Other" and write in something that covers my situation more accurately - which may still show up as just "Christian" in the data - or whether I should just grit my teeth and tick "Christian" anyway. I realise that no-one here has any obligation to help me sort out my thought process on that, but if anyone does feel like sharing any thoughts, it would be welcome.)