Peter Ansell wrote: <snip>
As I said above, the providing of a template does not have any greater effect over text based statements of belief. It is still wikipedia allowing a statement of belief. I did not mean to say that wikipedia should necessarily provide a premade template for ever aspect, however, I did mean to say that deleting just because editors or viewers of a certain background will be inflamed by the statement does not have precedent on wikipedia. We allow the most inflammatory thing possible, ie, the danish cartoons depicting Allah and Mohammed. If the encylopedia can detail such an inflammatory thing why can't user pages have simple statements of belief in long established religions.
One of the biggest problems is that userboxes are written in the third person; some party external to the user (ie. Wikipedia/WMF) seems to be making the statement, "this user does XYZ (and we certify/endorse this)". Allowing what appear to be "official statements" with such strong POVs to appear on userpages looks like a violation of NPOV, which is a Bad Thing.
It reeks of American Christian bias to me.
You're wrong. Most (United States of) Americans on Wikipedia aren't Christians.
(And for those who discount the cartoons just because they have been discussed previously, Don't!, they are for the time being the single most inflammatory thing available)
How about [[Image:Autofellatio_2.jpg]] (not safe for work)?