Yes, it'd be much clearer to *expand* the question to a simple “Does the person have a religion?” before asking which one.

“[Michael Dove, chair of the Census21 Group, told Crikey that] the current question [on the #AustralianCensus, “What is the person's religion?”] leads many people to talk about their cultural background rather than what religion they align with.

“It was in the interests of bishops and the church that the “cultural Catholics get counted so the Catholic Church can overstate its relevance, and continue to enjoy the privileged funding, policy, and media access benefits”, he said.

““There’s an awful lot of religious privilege that flows from the census stage and that needs to be changed.””

https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/05/27/2026-census-religion-question-showdown/

#TruthInData #AusPol #Religion #Privilege #Secular #Australia

1/5
Over the last decade, the #AustralianCensus has shown a large drop in the number of people identifying as #Christian in some form or another. There had already been a clear downward trend for a variety of reasons, but the acceleration in recent years is notable.

What are the reasons for this? To my mind, some of the most significant factors are these:

1. The consequences of the #RoyalCommission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse confirming and further exposing not just the prevalence of horrendous abuse within the #church (often with clergy as perpetrators), but even more devastatingly, the extent to which senior church leadership were complicit in covering up these awful crimes. Allowing a predator into leadership is a terrible thing; worse is to know someone is likely an abuser, but then prioritise the church’s reputation and finances over the safety and well-being of children. It is now widely known that some abusers had a string of complaints against them, but senior church leadership simply moved them from parish to parish to parish, leaving a trail of suffering and destruction behind them.
#ChurchCoverup