UK government recognises atheism

16 March 2007

A petition was recently put on the 10 Downing Street web site with the following wording:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to recognise the moral and ethical values held by Atheists as on a par with with religions.

A large part of britain’s (sic) society is made up of secular atheists. However, when referendums and debates are taking place, there is hardly ever a representative of humanist views for example, meaning that many people’s values are not being appreciated, in favour of religious ones. I only ask that Atheist ethics are given fair and preportional (sic) representation in the consideration of legislation.

We also ask that legeslation (sic) protecting religious views from attack, are equally applied to atheism and that remarks such as “Atheists are immoral” are treated in the same way as if ‘Atheists’ was replaced with ‘Jews’, ‘Muslims’ or ‘Christians’.

The government’s office today responded with the following announcement:

The Government respects the right of all citizens to freedom of belief, thought and expression. The moral and ethical values which underpin Humanism make an important contribution to British society. It is important that the diverse perspectives and needs of all communities are reflected in government policy, without excluding the shared values which underpin cohesive communities.

There are occasions when Government has conducted consultation exercises with faith communities, where there has been a specific relevance to faith related issues, or where a faith based perspective has been required. However, it continues to be a priority of Government to ensure that those without a faith perspective are also able to participate in constructive debate on a range of policy issues and to inform the development of legislation. The experiences which exist within the wide range of Atheist, Humanist and other secularist organisations make them key partners of Government and integral to the process of developing and implementing social policy.

Recent legislation countering racial and religious hatred only bans material or conduct which is threatening, and only if it is intended to stir up hatred of a group defined by its religion or belief. The right to freedom of speech, including robust debate and satirical comment, is safeguarded.

Which is nice.

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1215 ResponsesUK+government+recognises+atheism2007-03-16+19%3A02%3A32nullifidian to “UK government recognises atheism”

Nullifidian : Blog Archive : Petition time again on March 17th, 2007 1:36 pm

[...] UK citizens only.) Further to my previous post about the government recognising the value that the non-religious have in the UK, and for those of you who haven’t seen these before, we need your voices to add to the chorus [...]
TW on March 18th, 2007 10:07 pm

I wonder if:

Recent legislation countering racial and religious hatred only bans material or conduct which is threatening, and only if it is intended to stir up hatred of a group defined by its religion or belief.

Means that Theists would be punished for stirring up hatred of Atheists. Does a lack of religion count as a “religion or belief?”

It will be interesting to see how this announcement stands the test of time.
nullifidian on March 18th, 2007 10:14 pm

I guess a “lack of belief” is counted as a meta-belief for the sake of this legislation, although a court case is, of course, the acid test.

I suppose, for the government to be able to take action against the mad-rag-heads who spout their vile shit against anyone that’s not a muslim, the “belief” in question has to be “not believing in allah” or something equally vague.
TW on March 18th, 2007 10:22 pm

well said. Also it is nice to see that the government do sometimes respond to the petitions in a positive manner (as opposed to the ID card response which was basically – “we dont care how many of you signed to say it is a crazy idea, we are doing it”).
nullifidian on March 18th, 2007 10:26 pm

So very true. To be honest, I’d rather see that pack of jokers that make up the Respect party in government than see the current Labour rat-bags extend their term to carry the idiocy and lies that ID cards represent.

Oh, and thanks for reposting the petitions, the more the merrier! :-)