No Religion, One Community

Or at least religion should be irrelevant. Since the time of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland - indeed, since well before that, legislation in the name of "Equality" has required employers and other groups to monitor people in terms of their religious affiliation, and in other axes in accordance with Section 75 of the Equality Act.

So people in NI are regularly made to fill out forms, basically to say whether they are Protestant or Catholic. Indeed, that's not even enough - the question is often worded to ask whether you might be *perceived* as a member of the "Catholic Community" or the "Protestant Community", as if these were distinct entities.

Now, I know we have a history, and I know what the reasoning behind this all was in the first instance, but surely this shite is past its sell-by date? There is a new generation in Northern Ireland - a new set of people who do not identify themselves as "Protestant" or "Catholic" - just "human". We do not want to be "perceived" as "belonging" to categories of Prod or Taig, just to suit some number crunchers somewhere. I'm fecking fed up to the back teeth with this sort of bollocks, so I am respectfully suggesting to anyone in NI who might share my view that we should make a concerted effort to answer these questions in a way that indicates that we are a member of NEITHER the "Protestant" or "Catholic" communities, and then maybe this stupid exercise in legacy sectarian arsery will wither and die. And good riddance to it if that happens.