Thursday, March 12, 2009

Another Religious Recognition for Scientology

Scientology just had another religious recognition from a branch of the United Kingdom government.

The Crown Prosecution Service is an entity in the UK that determines whether cases prepared by the police in England and Wales should be brought to trial. They were recently asked if Scientology was protected under hate crime laws as are other religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Their answer was "yes."

Some of my fellow bloggers already wrote about this:
- CPS gives Scientologists same legal protection as mainstream religions
- Crown Prosecution Service gives Scientologists same legal protection as mainstream religions

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Scientology is not recognized as a religion in the United Kingdom. It has not charitable status in the UK.

Grahame said...

Sorry Jake, but you are incorrect. The Crown Prosecution Service certainly recognizes it (see the links in the article) as does the British Revenue & Customs service (see the link below).

The legal definition of "religion" which was skewed toward Judeo-Christian type religions was changed in 2006 to a more accurate definition.

Although the Charities Commission did not recognize Scientology in 1999, it is in the process of reviewing this because of the new law. Here is an article for you: Change in definition of Religion in the UK.

My earlier post on full charitable status was incorrect. I guess I jumped the gun when the new law came out.