19/05/2023
A new report has shown that, despite attempts by the right wing newspapers like the Daily Telegraph and the government to shore up formal religious affiliation, the number of British people who follow an established religion has fallen below the fifty per cent mark. In a press release, Humanists UK, which represents many atheist and agnostic people in the country, said "The World Values Survey confirms that the number of people in the UK who identify as non-religious is increasing, and has been for decades. With the survey showing such a large percentage of the population supporting a secular approach to democracy, we need to address the outdated approach to issues such as faith-based discrimination in schools, bishops in the House of Lords, and lack of legal humanist marriage. ‘We live in a diverse and plural society. The results show that the UK population has among the highest acceptance of religious diversity, and we should all work to build a country that treats everyone equally regardless of religion or belief.’ LGBTQIA Newswire Pink News says that the vociferousness of cruel anti-LGBT+ people within many religions was a factor in making people question the authority of ancient religions. President of Atheism UK, John Richards, said the growing trend of religious-indifference is “very pleasing” and is perhaps due to “education and the rise of science, which has proved to be a much more successful source of information Mr Richards told PinkNews: “It’s a trend that is not just restricted to the UK. Pretty much anywhere that has access to modern communication is showing the same loss of faith. This is a good thing, that we are growing up as a species, we are coming out of the need to believe in comforting explanations which are not true and being more discriminating about what we take as our reliable sources of information.” Of course, there are many LGBTQIA+ people who do have a religious faith, and there are many networks of welcoming spaces for gay, trans and nonbinary people of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindi and other backgrounds. Jayne Ozanne, a gay evangelical Christian, said that homophobic and transphobic religious groups were responsible for turning many younger people in particular off the idea of religion, but she noted that progressive religion still offered much for many LGBT+ people, their friends and allies.
