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LONDON, ENGLAND, August 5, 2001: Broadcasters in the United Kingdom want to a fight digital license ban, despite fears that opening the gates to U.S.-style evangelism will hit the weak and vulnerable. The BBC might just have appointed its first agnostic head of religion and ethics, and ITV may have already attracted doubts over whether it will breach the code of conduct for balance with its series on the evangelical Anglican Alpha course. But the battle for religious broadcasting is only just heating up. Broadcasters, particularly from the evangelical Christian community, are lobbying the government to relax regulations preventing them from applying for digital licenses to broadcast across Britain. They claim that the ban is discriminatory and especially unfair from a government headed by an avowed Christian. Any relaxation is being resisted by the National Secular Society, which argues that allowing religious broadcasters more access to the airwaves would open the way to manipulative U.S.-style evangelizing. The society says religious broadcasting is dangerous and does not deserve to be allowed to bid for licenses.

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