"Saint George" for a "New Era"

The Church of England might try to "rebrand" St. George??? (Rebranding Saint George, by Hal G.P. Colebatch, The American Spectator, 4/24/2007):

Just when it seems the Church of England can go no further in offensive fatuousness, it manages, faithfully, to excel itself yet again, to the continuing despair of those would-be satirists whose most absurd and savage inventions cannot hope to compete with the reality.

The latest exercise in grotesquerie is a call to "rebrand" Saint George, the Patron Saint of England, in the interests of culture-war, political correctness and leftism. The proposals are contained in a paper, "When the Saints Go Marching Out: Redefining Saint George For A New Era," created by what is described as an "Anglican think-tank" Ekklesia, and published in the Church of England Newspaper.

[...snip...]

[Simon Barrow, one of the paper's authors] claims that: "The patron Saint of England should be rebranded, and Saint George's Day should become a national day to celebrate the tradition of dissent." He believes Saint George should be re-branded as a "People's Saint,"...

When the Saints Go Marching Out?

Celebrating the tradition of dissent?

A People's Saint?

Colebatch is right, I think. Satirists face a steep, steep challenge here.

The article has some background on the sometimes very nasty controversy over how St. George's Day should be celebrated, and ongoing efforts by multiculturists to ban the St. George's flag from being displayed.

P.S. Robert at Expat Yank has the St. George's flag/England national flag flying in his sidebar, if you want to know what it looks like.

Or you can visit the Wikipedia article for St. George's Cross (which notes that England's flag is hardly the only flag or official symbol featuring it).

BTW: Wikipedia notes that citations aren't yet up to standards for the St. George's Day article, and is asking for help improving the page.

P.P.S. For getting me to The American Spectator, a tip of the hat to Lars Walker.

Addition: I knew I'd seen a St. George Feast Day post the other day...

Noted later: For reasons that are not clear to me, the Wikipedia links above (to St. George's Day and to St. George's Cross) keep changing into a link to the main St. George article. I've relinked, and relinked, and relinked, and achieved only temporary victory. (For instance, when I went to bed last night both links were good. This morning both have morphed.) I guess you'll have to search the articles out once you get over there, if you want to go to the bother, because I'm giving up on relinking, and moving on. To be honest, I generally feel a bit silly linking to Wikipedia anyway. This only makes me feel sillier.