Slashdot Mirror
Internet Dismantling the State Church In Finland
An anonymous reader writes "A Finnish secular web site that facilitates electronic resignation from the Finnish state church gained wide attention in the media this week. A gay rights TV panel discussion was followed by thousands resigning from the church. On Wednesday, 2633 people resigned through the web site, which is more than all the resignations in July. The Internet is secularizing the Finnish with increasing speed; over 90% of resignations in Finland go through the site administered and marketed by hobbyists driving Finland towards a secular, non-religious state."
Ireland has had a popular equivalent in http://countmeout.ie/ for some time.. It seems it has been so popular that, as of August, the catholic church actually changed their 'canon law' so that defection is no longer available!!
More likely its that Finns dont want to pay the 1.3% church tax that church members have to pay.
The premise for the televised debate was the rights of gay couples vs. the rights of heterosexual couples. What gay couples have here is a registered partnership, which has the inheritance and most social support rights of marriage, but excludes any adoption rights. Therefore most gay parents are marked as single parents, but still don't get full monetary support, since they are in a relationship (this does apply to non-married heterosexual couples as well, where the other party is not the biological parent). Also there was talk about the "stigma" of being in an apartheid-type of relationship, basically they want to change the civil marriage law so it would be gender neutral. This ofcourse brings out all the God-fearing mongrels with their Biblical opposition.
What really makes the situation funny is the fact that even the Evangelical-Lutheran church itself is pretty divided on the issue. There have been a few (primarily female) priests that have blessed gay couples after they have registered their civil relationship. Also the fact that most of the big religions have the right to issue marriage certificates, but still have the choice to refuse service to anyone they don't deem fit is an issue to some. The biggest issue is the state church (Evangelical-Lutheran) getting funds directly from taxes, which are paid by all members registered to the church. The average payout is 1,5%. They calculated the church lost 1,5 M in tax revenue for next year due to this debate.
Basically, it's the church that opposes giving legitimate status to families already in existence, and because we have a Christian party in the parliament, they're fighting the lefties and the greens all the way. Even getting the current partnership law thru took multiple tries over several terms.
It's not too weird if one looks at their god from the perspective of dystheism, maltheism or gnosticism (if only those weren't also suppressed a long time ago as "heretics" - but hey, it's something the Demiurge would want ;p )
Also, one old Usenet posting writing about it much better that I could in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe this one, too.
One that hath name thou can not otter