I would like to voice my complete support for the Primary Ethics course. It was long overdue and I wish that it had been available when I was a child. Any suggestion to remove this option should be considered as equivalent to arbitrarily banning one religious SRE.

For parents wanting their children to use the SRE time effectively but without religious indoctrination the ethics course is incredibly important.

We should not consider returning to the blatant discrimination against the non-religious /minority religions by cancelling the program. Removing this option would run contrary to anti-discrimination laws, our constitutional secular nature and the public education system’s secular mandate.

1.       The course yields positive results in children

As a volunteer teacher of the course I have witnessed the growth of the class full of children from simple “yes/no” type responses to clearly giving reasons behind their views and considering the ethical concerns of the questions put to them. They have also appeared to have developed a greater empathy along a number of topics (e.g. homelessness for instance does not get used as a joke by the students after they learned some facts about it and had discussions of the implications/causes of it) and I think more self-reflection of their possible actions or views on topics.

2.       Primary ethics volunteers are required to undergo rigorous safety checks beyond the minimum required by the department

Primary Ethics has a requirement that the other SRE providers do not seem to have which is that all ethics teachers submit to (and pass) a police history check. I am appalled that the religious organisations, with a long and continued record of child abuse and failure to act on problems, do not require SRE volunteers undergo police checks.

I would urge the review panel recommend that all SRE providers follow the Primary Ethics example and submit their volunteers to the same child safety standards of a police check.

3.       Religious SRE should be reviewed rather than singling out ethics (again)

I would ask that the existing SRE options be subject to some sort of review for suitability of content for young children: the ethics course has already had independent review, P&C and department collaboration at every level. The Churches, NSW teachers federation, education department, NSW Coalition/ALP/Greens and most importantly: children appear ok to have it as an option.

4.       The ethics course, offering religion neutral/secular option is incredibly popular

This course was created in response to a lobbying effort by parents and P&C groups to give children a meaningful non scripture option[1].

At my school more than half of the year 5/6 students wanted to attend or had parents who indicated that they wanted their children to attend. In another school somewhere near 90% are currently in non-scripture, having opted out of religious SRE.

This indicates many parents do not want their children receiving a religious SRE option and they should be permitted that choice (as it does not limit existing SRE options at all).

As an aside: If bans on handing out sweets/lollies/presents/show bags in SRE time were in place I suspect the number of children opting out of SRE time will still higher.

5.       It is unfair to ban one religious group’s SRE option while leaving others

It would be unthinkable to ban just Catholic SRE or have a ban on Islam while allowing all others to continue SRE.

It’s an all or nothing – either cancel SRE entirely or let the “no religion”/secular option exist alongside the other options.

6.       There is always the opt-out option and existing SRE options are unchanged

There is no compulsion in the non-scripture option to attend ethics – it is entirely optional.

Children can always sit and do nothing as they used to prior to ethics when they did not have the option of meaningful content during this timeslot.

Compare this to school chaplaincy (which is overwhelmingly Christian and a glaring violation of secular education principles, just like having no secular option available in SRE time would be) there is no effective opt out as the staff are embedded in the school and potentially are involved in excursions/events and the like.

Ethics is provided only in the SRE timeslot and parents/children have complete choice in whether to avoid it or join it.

7.       Children can get both ethics and religious instruction

There have been Sunday school (or other religious equivalent) available from Churches/Synagogues/Temples/Mosques for hundreds if not thousands of years prior to secular public education systems like the one we have in NSW. If ethics is so useful it must be attended by all students then the solution for parents wanting a religious instruction as well is one of the following:

• attend ethics in school and religious instruction outside school
• attend ethics one year, religious instruction the next year

As with many matters relating to child rearing – parents are the ones to decide which of the available SRE options they wish to take.

8.       Religious SRE has absolutely no independent review

I have heard a number of disturbing reports from School teachers and parents including:

• Religious creationist content is presented to the children as factual/historical despite all scientific evidence to the contrary.
• An SRE group requiring donations from the parents or else the children be excluded from the class. Parents complained of this pressure to donate (or else suffer the resulting social/cultural repercussions of not having children go to that SRE class).
• A  child arriving home frantic that they be baptised or else they would be “tortured for eternity” after receiving an SRE session which presented this damaging psychological threat to the children.

Complaints are relayed to the local church group. Given the world-wide reputation for failing to properly act on complaints I think this is unacceptable and a process should be in place to have any and all complaints handled (and recorded for analysis and review) by the department.

If the ethics course is up for review – the whole of SRE should be up for review.

9.       Ethics course content has been reviewed and trialled in conjunction with the department of education

The department examined and reviewed the content and the feedback was merged into the course. Some topics were removed and altered as a result of this process.

None of the material presented by religious SRE providers has been reviewed by the department and as a result parents have had children arriving home with statements that, were they not from religious books, would constitute mental abuse (e.g. fear of torture).

The material and course content was trialled at a small number of schools and the feedback worked into the course.  This indicates a sensible, measured approach to introducing the course.

10.   Ethics course has been independently reviewed by the last NSW govt

An independent reviewer (Dr Knight) was charged with reviewing the ethics trial[2] which was positive and which a number of the feedback items have since been merged into the course and it was rolled out[3].

As far as I’m aware the religious SRE providers have never had a govt directed review and they have been allowed to teach whatever and however they like.

11.   The ethics course is NOT about moral relativism and exposes moral relativism as flawed

Mr Nile asserted in parliament and in the media that this course was about moral relativism; that is a false claim that has clearly been addressed in a number of places and by a number of people consistently since before the program was being evaluated:

• The Primary Ethics website[4]
• The St James ethics centre website[5]
• Spokesmen/women for the program (including public debates and statements)
• The review of the ethics course by Dr Knight which Mr Nile referred to in his speech
• Media reports of the above[6]

It seems unlikely that despite all this Mr Nile can still be saying the course is teaching moral relativism.

12.   SRE time is teaching material which is not age appropriate, immoral, disturbing or contrary to law

Ethics does not teach the following (which are from Christian SRE) where all manner of crimes are ok so long as god is committing them:

• A parent should be prepared to do anything including murdering their child if told to do so by god (I was told the story of Isaac and Abraham as a child in scripture)
• that sins and crimes of mankind are absolved by sacrificing a child (the story of Jesus, a fundamental part of Christian mythology)
• You are constantly being watched and judged not only on what you do, but on what you think (another damaging concept for children to be taught as fact)
• Any crime whatsoever can be forgiven if you believe in Jesus and ask forgiveness (this runs contrary to our legal system and is a deeply unethical concept – children should not be taught this notion contrary to Australian law)
• Sexism and misogyny[7] (this is contrary to the Australian anti-discrimination laws),
• Homophobia (surely not a suitable ideology to be potentially presenting to children, again – violates anti-discrimination laws intended to prevent vilification based on sexuality),
• Rape (Genesis 19:5-8 has a father offering up his two daughters to be raped)
• Incest (Genesis – a likely first chapter for a child reading the bible handed out in SRE time)
• Mass Murder & mass infanticide (including god’s slaughter of all humanity, all the first born sons in Egypt, entire cities, entire ethnic groups – children are coached that whatever the crime – god is right in doing so and should be unconditionally loved/worshipped – this was also taught to me in scripture many years ago)

With SRE time it seems there should be some review of the material presented in SRE time to ensure it is appropriate to the age group (as ethics has done with the Dept. of education).

Consider if other books contained the above topics found in religious texts – they are unlikely to be approved reading for infants/primary school children.

13. Mr Nile’s speech in Parliament introducing this review of ethics contains a number of falsehoods upon which this review may be assuming correct

In response to the speech made in parliament leading to this review there are a number of false and misleading claims made by Fred Nile:

• “I believe that that course does not teach children right from wrong but promotes the secular humanist relative philosophy where there are no absolutes, such as ‘You shall not murder’, ‘You shall not lie’, and ‘You shall not steal.’“. Believing something does not make it so. There is no requirement for SRE time to teach “absolutes”.  An even cursory glance at the topics of the course would show that it is designed to cover ethical enquiry specifically on those issues listed (and much beyond those topics).
• “Even Dr Knight, who conducted the review for the Australian Labor Party Government, said that the course should not be called an ethics course; rather, it should be called a philosophical relativism course, with which I agree.” – She clearly said no such thing and in fact talks about religious groups incorrectly claiming this relativism notion[8]. There is no reference in the report by Dr Knight to changing the name. Her quote on religious groups receiving more information to avoid this mistake appears to apply to Mr Nile: “Such information would have gone some way to allay fears that the course is based on moral relativism or mere values clarification and related worries that within an ethical inquiry approach peer pressure becomes the arbiter of moral worth.“; clearly Mr Nile is misrepresenting the findings to parliament or hasn’t read the report.
• “Relative ethics is the basis of secular humanism.” – No it is not and actually runs contrary to the concept. It is pretty hard to have the concept of “justice” and “reason” if anything goes. Perhaps Mr Nile is making this assumption due to ignorance rather than a lie; Either way it is false.
• “No-one in the church supports the ethics course. There is no question about that.” This is clearly false particularly when both the Catholic and Anglican Church have publicly said they do not wish to have it removed.
• “Dr Knight said it is dealing with philosophical relativism.” – I believe he takes this to mean it is teaching relativism rather than showing it to be a silly concept. In her review she recommends that relativism be discussed, but that’s in order to clarify how different the ethics course intent is from relativism.
• Mr Nile cites “situational ethics” which is actually a theory originally developed by Christian ethical philosophy[9]. He implies ethics course is about situational ethics. It is not and actually counters the notion of concepts like situational ethics. Any course on philosophy, ethics, religion or morality would typically present certain situations as discussion points but that is different to “situational ethics”.
• Mr Nile claimed he spoke for the churches, but they have issued public statements that they do not want any further review/disruption and the matter is settled with them[10].
• The Ten Commandments contain references to slavery and to notions which are contradictory to our legal system[11] – As such they are of extremely limited use as a moral guide to situations encountered in our modern society.

Conclusion

The ethics course has already been subject to numerous reviews at every level while the SRE religious options have had no review, no department vetting of content, no effective child safety (mandatory police checks) and countless complaints swept under the carpet.

If there is to be SRE time – then it is religious discrimination to consider eliminating one religious group’s structured option (the “no religion” or secular group). While the course is open to all, it is the only choice available for those not wishing a religious indoctrination option in that timeslot but still having a structured course.

Please do not seek to impose the will of a tiny minority who wish to deny children a meaningful secular option in SRE time – it would be highly unethical and unfair.

If ever there was proof of a group in need of examining the ethical basis of their argument – it is those who would remove this option from the NSW SRE time.

Regards,

Nathan Lee

To the Honourable Chris Hayes,
You are on the wrong side of the debate on equal marriage rights. You’re also on the wrong side of society (in the minority who disagree with gay marriage). You will judged in future to be in the same class as those in the past arguing that Aboriginals remain classified as fauna and women not receive the vote as they have duties in the kitchen to attend to. Do you really want to be in that category of ignorant human beings publicly voicing their support for discrimination.

Make no mistake: this law will change like race and gender inequality was thrown out in the past – you are just making a fool out of yourself in the meantime. I would have thought someone with your background in workplace relations and the like would be well aware of the discrimination laws and how they can be directly and indirectly unfair.

I wonder if you would be so quick to announce you support inequality if you substituted race for someone’s sexuality. The SMH quoted you as saying “‘You do believe in certain things. I can’t apologise for my beliefs,”
(from http://www.smh.com.au/national/we-wont-vote-for-gay-marriage-even-if-party-changes-its-position-say-labor-right-mps-20111130-1o766.html )

You do believe in certain things: but you’re like a racist boasting about how you think black people shouldn’t be allowed to marry outside their race. It’s nothing to be proud of and you should be apologising for your poor judgement.

No one picks their sexuality Mr Hayes, but they do pick whether to be an ignorant, prejudiced homophobic fool.

Do you even know anyone who is gay? Chances are with your views they have kept it a private matter around you if you’ve made your views known in the past. If you weren’t espousing such a small minded view you might find that gay people are just like straight people. Just like when racists actually get around to getting to know people of a different skin colour they find that they were just ignorant in the extreme: you are no different to the racist who has never bothered to take the time to know a person of different skin colour.

As a heterosexual with some sense of fairness I’m not about to dictate that someone else should have special discrimination against them because of their sexuality.It actually makes me cringe when I attend weddings and they get to the part “Australian law defines marriage as between a man and a woman” because I think it is absolutely unnecessary.
Quite how someone else’s marriage affects you is beyond me or perhaps you are worried you’ll have no more excuses and will promptly find yourself married to another male if this bit of discriminatory legislation is fixed?

Anyhow, I’d urge you to reconsider the type of view you have that is on the same side as the racists and the misogynists who choose to discriminate on something which a person has no choice whatsoever. By all means discriminate against people with chosen views, but if you can’t in good conscience replace “gay” with “mixed race” then that’s a sign your views are rather repulsive. That you are a member of the ALP and so woefully ignorant of the need for equality to remove injustice makes me think that you might be better off in another party. I believe the Christian Democrats might have a suitably backward ideology that is more of a fit?

So unlike you, I believe in equality and I think you should apologise for your beliefs. Just as racists and sexist people should apologise and learn some ethics.

You’ve declared yourself to be in bad company Mr Hayes, I suggest you lift yourself away from such a repugnant mob and carry yourself and your views to a level that the “The Honourable” out the front of your title should indicate. “To the homophobic Chris Hayes” would be more accurate at the moment.

regards,
Nathan Lee

I am appalled at the joy our leaders are expressing at the death of Osama bin Laden. There should have been a fair trial and proper court process with life imprisonment (as with our legal system). The death penalty, whether by trial or sniper fire, is something all should oppose, even for the most vile, lest we stoop to their level.

Nathan Lee – Surry Hills

But I guess no amount of writing letters will change that he’s now a martyr and any chance at proper justice (versus revenge) is lost forever.
Not that this whole thing couldn’t have been avoided by Bush simply accepting the offer by the Taliban to turn over bin Laden back in October 2001.

Oh, and it is almost exactly 8 years to the day from the point at which Bush declared “Mission Accomplished”.

Wonder if Trump and the Tea Party Birther nutcases will refuse to believe Osama is dead without the full birth certificate?

UPDATE:
A reply in the next day’s letters may have “jumped the gun” a bit:

I’m not sure if Nathan Lee (Letters, May 3) is kidding, with his insistence that ”There should have been a fair trial and proper court process” of Osama bin Laden. Assuming he is serious, it’s just embarrassing to see how little stomach people seem to have. Does Mr Lee realise that bin Laden would have been firing an automatic weapon at the time he was shot? Perhaps the US soldiers should have read him his rights instead? As far as I’m concerned, a bullet to the head was too kind, and I feel sorry for the fish now feasting on him.

Daniel Lewis Rushcutters Bay

Effective justice depends more on reasoning brains than gut feeling of rage. He was not only unarmed but unless he was naked he was to be shot. Sure doesn’t sound like there was much of a window for him to come out of it alive to be put on trial huh?

The environment is something I’m quite passionate about and like a lot of people I imagine: I get worried about the misquoting and lies that people are telling to justify continuing along without lifting our game.

Original letter

The letter I was responding to went like this:

Cheap energy must be given priority

Saturday’s front-page photograph of a wheat farmer knee-deep in mud should serve to remind us it was not so long ago that climate experts were predicting south-eastern Australia had moved into a state of permanent drought (“This drought may never break”, January 4, 2008).

The inability of climate experts to predict even a few years into the future casts much doubt on the credibility of their 50-year forecasts, and the extent to which man-made carbon emissions can affect these forecasts.

Politicians should take great care about formulating carbon emission policies that will result in large energy price rises based on the advice of those demonstrated to be frequently wrong in their predictions.

The climate does change: sometimes it gets drier and sometimes it wetter; sometimes it gets warmer and sometimes cooler. We would be better served by policies that recognise these cyclical changes occur and that result in securing our most critical resources: cheap water and energy.

Ron Blombery McMahons Point

To which I applied a bit of sceptical thinking to what he was claiming and thought “hey, that doesn’t sound like a prediction climate scientists would make”. Sure enough the original article “This drought may never break” made no such claim that if climate change was correct: we’d see no more rain..

My letter

My response to Ron Bombery’s misinterpretation of what was said:

Scientists didn’t come down in the last shower

Ron Blombery (Letters, December 6) wrongly says a rainfall prediction was made by climate experts in the 2008 article he cites. The story was very clear. It said: ”There is absolutely no debate that Australia is warming.” On the subject of drought (rainfall and temperature) it said: “There is a debate in the climate community, after … close to 12 years of drought, whether this is something permanent. Certainly, in terms of temperature, that seems to be our reality, and that there is no turning back.”

Short of reading only the headline (which says the drought ”may” never break, not ”will”), I fail to see how one could conclude that the scientists had staked the validity of climate science to a prediction of zero rainfall in a specific part of Australia. There was no failure of science, only a failure by Mr Blombery to read the article properly.

Nathan Lee Surry Hills

I think we have given preference to cheap energy plenty: cheap and dirty unfortunately. Mr Blombery needs to go to China to see what focussing on cheap energy, cheap manufacturing, cheap goods results in. So what if we’re wrong on climate change anyhow?
Looks like others agreed on the topic:

The recent rain is an example of weather, which is difficult to predict even a few weeks ahead due to its inherently chaotic nature. Climate is weather averaged out over a longer period. The recent rain does not somehow cancel out all the observations of the past

60 years that show south-east Australia is getting hotter and drier, or that the past decade has been the hottest on record.

The CSIRO’s State of the Climate Report 2010 confirms this, and points out that the number of record hot days has been rising since 1960, and the number of record cold days over the same period has been decreasing.

Unfortunately, too many politicians exhibit a similar level of logic and misunderstanding when it comes to differentiating between weather and climate, and this is partly why we find ourselves in the do-nothing position that characterises so much public policy associated with climate change.

Jim Russell Balmain

Cheap energy is the problem, not the solution. Whether or not carbon emissions are changing the climate, oil production is peaking and the coal and gas won’t last forever. The cheaper they are, the faster they run out. Raise the price and they last longer and encourage people to invest in alternative and renewable sources.

Hey presto, we postpone or even avoid wars over expensive, dwindling energy resources.

Jeffrey Mellefont Coogee

I love the Australian approach to climate change. “The climate does change: sometimes it gets drier and sometimes wetter; sometimes it gets warmer and sometimes cooler”. Onya Ron, problem solved, no worries. What do these bloody scientists know anyway?

Steve Durham Northbridge

Good to see there was a decent amount of column space to people replying to his climate change denial. I don’t think it’ll change his mind one little bit that he has managed to misread an article as supporting his view somehow when the scientist clearly said there’s no debate.

What if we're wrong on climate change?

I wonder at what point the guy reckons we stop focusing on cheap (dirty) energy? If not today: in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? When the coal runs out and global temperature is many degrees higher? When we ARE able to predict that certain parts of Australia will be in permanent drought? When?

A search for Ron Blombery’s letters
It looks like Ron, like myself, likes to write letters to the SMH. It is easy to see why he thinks climate change is crap when he has shares in mining companies (or at least superannuation that he’s concerned about):
he doesn’t want them taxed more that’s for sure:

To fund our retirement, superannuation funds invest in businesses such as mining that offer good asset growth and dividends. Now the government is going to make these businesses pay a lot more tax, which will reduce their asset value and dividends. At the same time, it encourages us, and forces employers, to put more money into the superannuation system whose future returns it has just diminished. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

Ron Blombery McMahons Point

Perhaps they will move shares to green energy companies? Or do investors never sell shares?

He also seems concerned about the environmental benefits of the insulation scheme: though with a pro-mining, climate change denying stance it’s hard to see why he would care one little bit about environmental outcomes when he doesn’t think we’re changing the climate anyhow:

No one seems to be asking the most obvious question about home insulation: what did we get for $2.5 billion? The evidence shows we got rampant opportunism, skulduggery and employment of “the most vulnerable, youngest, unskilled workers” (”Spin and silver tongues can’t hide an empty morality”, February 18). But did the program achieve anything for energy conservation?

By now, a significant proportion of houses should be enjoying the benefits of new insulation. The energy companies can readily produce statistics on power consumed on comparable summer days this year and last year. If there were measurable benefits, surely the government would be telling us. Where are the results? Or did we just waste $2.5 billion?

Ron Blombery McMahons Point

Isn’t ripping out cheap coal and burning it despite clear evidence that it is polluting the atmosphere some sort of opportunism? Or is selling boatloads of it to China for cut price “opportunism”.

So perhaps instead of just thinking about purely financial matters: Ron should think about the future of the environment. If we dig up and burn away everything in the pursuit of Ron Blombery’s personal financial well being: we’ll not achieve much. We have to consider the children and grandchildren of Ron Blombery even if he won’t.

Would anyone claim it is a “tricky issue” or “tradition” that black people shouldn’t marry whites? Or would that simply be racist?

Citing tradition, religion or the status quo (as politicians, religious leaders do) doesn’t somehow excuse you from common decency.

Parallels..

If you don’t like gay marriage then it is simple: don’t get gay married or stay at home if invited (you may miss some rather extravagant gay weddings). Don’t for an instant think that supporting a ban is any more acceptable than wanting a ban on mixed race weddings (which I’m sure had another set of unenlightened people in the past crying about the decline of society and death of morality).

You don’t choose your skin colour at birth, nor do you choose your sexuality (when did you decide to be straight?).

You can however choose to continue to be ignorant, prejudiced, racist or homophobic.

(A letter the smh didn’t publish.. Guess pointing out that racism and homophobia are identical was too “out there” for ‘em).

Unfair bank exit fees? Do owners allow tenants to break leases without incurring extra charges? No. Renters are liable for anything from a month’s rent to the rest of the lease period. A renter is slugged many times more than the owner is for shifting a 30-year mortgage. What of the other “unfair moving fees” (removalists, cleaning, mail redirection and reconnection fees) an owner can impose on a renter: can we get those paid for by the owners?

While politicians aim their “unfair exit fees” pitchforks: I have a two-year mobile phone plan which has fees if I decide to swap to someone with a better plan. Where are my enraged politicians to take down greedy telecommunications companies?

A two-year gym membership would result in higher exit fees than 30-year mortgage owners would cop. I have a possible solution: mortgage owners could use a small part of the first home owner’s grant, duties exemption or massive tax writeoffs (for negative gearing) to cover these fees.

Nathan Lee Surry Hills

It was followed up the next day by a piece from Ross Gittins on “Demand a better deal and stop moaning about banks“.

Forgive me if I’m less than impressed by the tirade of righteous indignation being unleashed against the banks. It’s self-serving, selective and uninformed.

I guess when you get angry you forget to check things out and think them through. The media and the politicians on both sides are whipping up indignation, rather than conveying information and fostering understanding.

Hear hear!

You'd think you'd read the details on a mortgage contract huh?

So you don’t think I’m just making stuff up
As a concrete example, here’s what Optus had to say about my request to close off my account (because I get shitty reception in the building at work and my phone is pretty useless if I am going to get dropped calls while hugging the window hoping they’ll stay connected.

Hi Nathan,

Thank you for your email.

Your 24 month contract end date is 30 June 2011. Upgrading or Cancelling your service before the end date will incur the following fees-

o $504.00 (including GST) Early Upgrade fee or Contract Cancellation fee
o $112.00 (including GST) Handset Payout fee (8 remaining payments of $14.00 including GST)

I would recommend that you wait until you have only 3 months remaining on your contract to upgrade as we maybe able to offer an upgrade without the Early Upgrade fee.

… snip for brevity..

All the best

Melissa
Web Servicing Team
Optus

So there’s $504 to end my contract nearly a year and a half in and a handset payout fee.. So to get out of just 7 and a half months of a 2 year contract it’ll cost me $616.
Let’s look at what the bank exit fee whingers are complaining about from this article I can gather the following are the exit fees for the big banks:

• ANZ = $700
• CBA = $700
• NAB = $900

So it costs less to move hundreds of thousands of dollars of mortgage to another bank than it does for me to shift off Optus for ANZ and CBA. So a year into a 30 year contract worth $500k is less expensive to swap than my bloody phone plan.

Fatcat Banker cat says noes.

As I said, maybe they can use some of those tax breaks (for negative gearing) or blatant vote buying handouts (1st homeowner’s grants). If you think the whining is bad now, just wait til these mortgage owners start learning about negative equity. That and politicians seem to forget mortgage owners are in the minority, though I guess most of them are taking advantage of the generous tax scams available to investment property via negative gearing.

Along with the Libs and ALP Bob Brown’s jumped on the bank exit fee bandwagon and reckons:

“It’s time they gave something back to the average Australian.”

No, Bob, they never EVER gave anything to the average Australian. Well, you know, except the fucking mortgage in the first place. *slap*

The letter: Re: Scripture should not be taught in Government schools.

To Whom it may concern,
As it has been a concern of mine for a long time now: I’d like to ask is there any reason why we are still allowing religious people into public schools for the purposes of promoting their religion? I would have thought this would have ceased a long time ago.

It must NOT be opt-out requiring permission from parents, it must be a special opt in with strict syllabus if it is allowed at all. Having it opt out (with no material/alternative instruction) makes it seem like the parent is skipping an important aspect of their education to let their kid run around doing nothing.

The Education Act

From the Education Act, Section 30 – “Secular instruction”
“In government schools, the education is to consist of strictly non-sectarian and secular instruction. The words secular instruction are to be taken to include general religious education as distinct from dogmatic or polemical theology.”

I’m not sure at what point this got missed when Christian scripture in public schools was deemed to be the default choice and a secular education required parents to object in writing. I would think parents can assume that there will be no default religious element whatsoever (or else they would have sent them to a religious school surely?). In the several schools I’ve got knowledge of it is expected that parents either fill in a form and in some cases provide written and/or face to face justification for their reasons for not wanting religious indoctrination.

Referring to Section 32 of the act:
“Children attending a religious education class are to be separated from other children at the school while the class is held.”
The language of this implies that they will be a minority, not the default choice with the “non scripture” group left to fend for themselves as it is currently. Currently the process is that those “opting out” are separated grudgingly from the religious class.

Content of Religious instruction

Assuming nothing substantial has changed in the religious types since I was growing up: it was nothing more than Christian indoctrination. A bit of investigation (discussion a teacher friend and several parents of infants/primary school age children) and the recent media attention reveals it has not changed. In particular parents are regularly upset at some of the messages (e.g. “You’ll go to hell for not believing in Jesus” or “I’m not baptised and I’m worried I’m going to hell”) they come home with. It appears that these concerns are not raised to the department level and are referred to the church bodies (sounds just like how allegations of child abuse are handled in the Catholic church), thus hiding the many instances of inappropriate messages delivered by (unqualified to teach) religious people.

There is also a school where Jewish religious people are demanding “donations” from children or else the kids are not allowed to return (several parents expressed concern over this.. with little action to immediately terminate any arrangement with those religious groups). This effectively turns our secular schools into a fund raising activity as well as an indoctrination opportunity.

Anti-discrimination policies violated by religious teachings

It appears to me to be a violation of the department’s policies to be allowing some of the teachings of religions which contain anti-gay, anti-other religions, anti-non believer content with a clear message that they will be tortured for eternity just for being themselves or thinking differently from a 1500, 2000 or 3000 year old set of stories.

One can find ample evidence that the reason we have to have a policy on homophobia is thanks to religious prejudices. Imagine the position of a child who is gay (or who has gay parents) sitting in on a lesson on what biblical sin is, or a child who does not believe in God and told that (contrary to our justice system) their punishment will be torture and hell fire. Or just any child presented with the Orwellian notion that they are under constant surveillance and constant evaluation of thoughts for “thought crime”.
That’s to say nothing of the incest, mass murder, slavery, genocide and other barbaric concepts contained within the bible making it unsuitable study material to be presented to young impressionable children as if it were fact or a source of good morals.

Church is the appropriate venue

It’s fairly obvious that if parents wish their children to be indoctrinated as Christians then they have an obvious avenue: Church. As Muslims: the Mosque. As Jews: the Synagogue. That scripture is opt-out (an option which only became available part way through my experiences) rather than opt-in (with no teaching time filling the gap) is particularly worrying. Parents are faced with having their children sitting idle or else in the company of people filling their heads with Christian mythology presented as facts. I can’t imagine other religions getting as easy a ride either (the recent outrage over Scientology in schools and certainly I haven’t heard of Islamic/Hindi content in scripture provided alongside Christianity in every school). I certainly haven’t heard of any attempts to introduce a humanist or ancient Greek philosophical moral lessons.

Of little educational value

When I was a child and subjected to the local “Churchies” attempting to convert us, there was no attempt whatsoever to take an impartial stand, consider other religions or provide reasonable answers to childishly simple questions. It was also never varied: always a Christian viewpoint presented as fact. It was merely an opportunity to force the kids to go through the motions of Christianity (making kids say prayers, recite verses etc).

Given the completely unsubstantiated claims made (that even I as a young child could see) it seems somewhat at odds with our secular, rational, fact based based curriculum.

The classes presented absurdities (“If only you had enough faith you could walk on water” which as a child I actually took as something plausible for a while) through to the most abhorrent immoral lessons imaginable (“A father prepared to slaughter his son for god was a noble thing”). They were there to make stone age arguments from authority and to instil a guilt at the “thought crime” of doubting the patently unbelievable stories presented as fact in a government school.

The strong message was that God absolutely exists, doubting that is a sin, accepting Jesus is the only way to heaven and that eternal torture awaits those who have heard of Christianity and rejected it. This is a very damaging concept to be polluting the minds of children with and unlike other material in the syllabus: absolutely no evidence to back it up. Might as well teach alchemy rather than chemistry, astrology rather than astronomy.

Qualifications of religious people to teach children

From the reports of the real teachers the educational abilities of the scripture “teachers” are often rather poor. Classroom behaviour is not maintained at any sort of acceptable level with the teachers having to step in to keep the peace (perhaps because the students realise the ridiculousness of the material presented).

There’s also absolutely no reason for religion to be taught by unqualified religious types (who as recent news stories have shown have a rather bad track record with respect to child molestation) rather than as a general topic on religion (not taught from the viewpoint of one within the religion). If a broad topic on religion is to be taught in school it MUST be from outside the religion and by those qualified to teach children. To allow anything else is pure religious indoctrination, not education. That teachers are currently unable to voice any opinion on religion even to console distressed students (“no, actually you aren’t evil because you don’t believe in Jesus”, “you shouldn’t worry about being constantly watched 24/7″ or perhaps later on “the pope is wrong on condoms and that position has increased the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa”) and the scripture “teachers” can say whatever they like.

Replace scripture with real education

I would urge you to immediately discontinue the teaching of scripture in all schools, to be replaced with a subject with a broad curriculum and taught by real teachers. A secular based course in philosophy and moral discussion would be far more beneficial to developing an awareness of right and wrong. This could be a part of the civics and citizenship subject to be introduced in coming years.

regards,
Nathan Lee