UK Census

[daibhidc]

Someone from Atheism Scotland was in The Scotsman the other day disagreeing with the "If you're not religious, for God's sake say so!" position of the British Humanist Association. Apparently, they feel that the Government is going to ignore atheists anyway, and the way to send them a clear message is to rip up your census form.

Not filling in the census carries a £1,000 fine. I think the clear message the Government would get from that is that ignoring atheists is a great way to increase revenue.

Comments

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

It's against the U.S. Constitution to ask questions about religion (the whole "seperation of Church and state" thing), but my feeling is that the best way to protest is precisely to fill out the census. Basically saying: Dammit! I'm here, I'm real! and you have to take time to at least note my existance!

The more energy spent in counting the atheists, the harder it will be to say they don't exist or don't count.

I was so looking forward, last year, to filling out our own census and writing down that I know American Sign Language, just so that it goes on record as a real language that deserves respect. I was disapointed to discover there were no question relating to language at all. But there was a question asking in detail which ethnic group you identified with. Frankly, I think, if you're going to use census results to help decide where govt. resources go, languages are a lot more important than country of origin.

But that's just me.

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

There's a couple of questions about languages in the UK census.

There's one for "Do you speak Scots or Scots Gaelic?" (at least in our edition -- I assume Wales and Northern Ireland have Cymric and Erse instead); one for "How well do you speak English?", and then finally one for "Do you speak a language other than English at home?", with ticky boxes for "No", "Yes, British Sign Language" and "Yes, Other".

So it's nice that they do include BSL as a real language, but if you know it but don't share a household with someone who uses it exclusively, then it doesn't count...

The religion question is, I think, the only one with a bullet-point telling you that it's entirely voluntary and you don't have to answer it. I assume there's something in the mess of our Unwritten Constitution that ensures this -- it can't be Seperation of Church and State, because we don't have that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Governor_of_the_Church_of_England)...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

because we don't have that.

Yeah, I know. :-) Britain is right up there with the Pharoahs of Egypt, it is.. [ducks and runs]

The problem with requiring BSL exclusively is that sign languages don't have written forms, so all Deaf people around the world are (at least) bi-lingual: signing in their language in face-to-face communication, and communicating in their country's dominate language in writing...

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "exclusively" wasn't the right word. I originally wrote "share a household with someone who's deaf", but then worried that maybe there were other reasons to use BSL I hadn't thought of...