Comment on ABS decision to reuse biased, coercive Census religion question puts human rights in the spotlight
Almacca@aussie.zone 3 weeks agoRegrettably, the ABS backed down following a media campaign by the Catholic hierarchy — who wanted to keep the question as it was, to ensure comparable data with past Censuses — and following the Albanese Government’s intervention on the Census design just days out from the large-scale test.
I do wonder what the problem is when there’s a ‘No religion’ option, though.
Tenderizer@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Per the article, without a “no religion” option people will pick the religion of their parents even if they’re now atheist.
Tau@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
There already was a “no religion” option, in the last census it was the first checkbox under the question asking what religion you follow.
He does have a point in that the proposed question would have been a more neutral way of determining whether someone is religious, the combination of the implicit assumption in the old question that having a religion is normal and providing an single tick option for selecting common ones probably does make a small percentage say yes that would not in the proposed question. Claims of coercion and human rights abuse though seem a bit over the top and are probably coming more from a dislike of religions (and their political power) rather than a desire for accurate data.
What wasn’t mentioned in the article but is something I would consider likely that the main difference with the proposed question might not be from the question itself but from extra effort of writing out a religion name rather than ticking a box - it’s a small effort but there’d be a lot of people who just want to go through the questions as fast as possible.