Your post implied that secular political power for certain religious groups within a country was allocated upon the number of people who were members of a specific religion (ie confession). Thus, if people convert away, then the religion will lose the number of seats in the legislature, or jobs, or tax dollars, etc that they get.
That's what the article implied. From the article:
"According to Argentine campaigner Ariel Bellino, a former Catholic: "The church counts all those who've been baptized as Catholic and lobbies for legislation based on that number, so we're trying to convey the importance of people expressing they no longer belong to the church." Campaigners say that's particularly important in Argentina, where liberal social values frequently clash with Roman Catholic doctrine related to issues such as birth control, abstinence before marriage and homosexuality; in 2003, Buenos Aries became the first city in South America to legalize gay civil unions."I can't think of any country that counts the number of adherants of a religion when giving specific religious groups direct political power AND permits people to change religions. Such as the Archbishop of Canterbury sits in the House of Lords by virtue of being Archbishop of Canterbury.
I still can't seem to get my head around what you're saying. Are you saying that if the Archbishop of Canterbury were to change his religion he
would still have a seat in the House of Lords, or that he
wouldn't?