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| Re: No, It's the Liberal Secularists (10336) | |||
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Re: No, It's the Liberal Secularists |
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Posted by Fytton on Mon Jan 10 06:17:47 2005, in response to Re: No, It's the Liberal Secularists, posted by Rail Blue on Tue Dec 28 23:33:05 2004. Pig: "Religious governments are great,...Rail Blue: "And in the civilised world, modern Britain..." In the most nominal sense imaginable; official discrimination against Catholics, Jews, non-conformist protestants, and non-believers in the UK lies, fortunately, in the distant past; Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims also live, work, worship and vote here without let or hindrance, although admittedly since 9/11 there has been quite a lot more unofficial prejudice agains Muslims. The proportion of the population who are even minimally practising Anglicans (in the sense of taking communion on Easter Day) is probably under ten percent of the population, and overall the British population is possibly the least religious in the Westen world. So the monarch has to be Anglican; who cares? Not so clear about the Prime Minister; Harold Wilson was a Methodist and nobody minded; Tony Blair is a Catholic in all but name (his wife and children are officially so), and maybe he hasn't formally converted because of some lingering doubts about the legality of a Catholic PM. Where the UK seems to score over the USA is in general commonsense and reasonableness about religious words and symbols in public. My Muslim graduate students sent me Christmas cards; I wished *them* happy holidays in return. Leicester and Loughborough put up their municipal decorations in time for Diwali and leave them up to celebrate Christmas too. As a religious humanist, agnostic about God, I happily both send and receive Christmas cards, choosing to send designs that emphasize the message of peace and goodwill - both commodities that seem to be in short supply in the USA at the moment. |
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