A campaign is growing in the UK calling for people to list their religion as "lesbian" in the Census to protest the lack of a question on sexual orientation. Lesbian broadcaster Amy Lamé and Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill are backing the move, with Summerskill saying, “The census is designed to ‘help allocate public spending fairly' and gay people contribute more than £40 billion a year to the cost public services. Our deliberate exclusion by the civil servants responsible is gratuitously offensive.” The online campaign calls on everyone, including men and straight people, to say they are lesbian to “send a message” to census organisers when they fill out the forms on Sunday. In 2009, the Equality and Human Rights Commission asked government ministers to include a question in the 2011 census on sexual orientation but the idea was ruled out. Such a question was also shot down for New Zealand's now-postponed Census, with Statistics New Zealand looking at other ways to gather information such as a standalone survey.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 25th March 2011 - 12:23pm