Well said, Mac!

<<The secular state should not be involved in the support of religious institutions, through tax concession or any other means.>>

How true!

Involvement with the state:

1) Corrupts religion.
2) Causes justified anger of the secular against religion and God.
3) Allows the state to interfere in religious matters and the lives of the people of God.

This said about the secular state, how much more applicable when the state isn't even neutrally secular, but follows the false religion of objectivism and teaches its state-school children to worship the latest new god, Evidence.

This written earlier, just saw your new post:

<<Actually, they must be subject to the impositions of the state, for civil societies to exist.>>

If you, as a secular person, want to introduce a civil society, it's your right to do so, but you have no right to impose your society on the people of God without their consent.

<<I only agree to the extent that the religious practices of religious people are within the liberal-democratic parameters set by the state and society.>>

In other words, you want to place your state and society above God and His people, impose your standards on them, then have the audacity to call it "liberal-democratic". Yes, I know your state has guns, police dogs, helicopter gunships and what not, but a true person of God will rather die than break his/her bond with God in favour of your petty society.

<<I'm sure you wouldn't support the practice of human sacrifice>>

Personally not, but it's not up to me to dictate my beliefs to others.

What you do inside your civil society is none of my business. What people of God who did not freely choose to belong to your civil society do among themselves is none of yours. I also do not support the right of people outside your civil society to sacrifice humans of your civil society. If they do, then you have every right to wage war against them and kill them in return.

How about we who are inflicted with a mythical God at every turn we take Hilary Clinton "God bless Australia or God save the Queen,God bless America, God here, God there, "it is time he was left with the mythical writers who created him,
I do not think a Secular society would dominate the believers of their mythical God, go ahead and worship him , being Secular I agree with Moirai, it is a well written article.

Yuyutsu,

Amnesty money did no go into the teaching at the school. The school provided the teacher and, as far as I know, any materials used. I did not teach the subject, but I imagine there would have been some contact with Amnesty to provide information, which would have been a perfectly reasonable use of Amnesty funds as the students worked to free prisoners of conscience. There was no teaching for or against abortion that I know of as Amnesty had not at that stage adopted the pro-abortion stance it now has. Amnesty would have got a lot of value out of the arrangement given the efforts the students could make on its behalf on the actual purposes for which it was established.

RevDek predicts that "Removing grants to Church Schools would place an unbearable burden on governments if they if they shut down."
Possibly in the short term but the closing of church schools would remove one of the most serious contributors to "otherness", the pervading view of the members of one tribe or social group that those who differ from them are inferior beings to whom the normal "do unto others" respect need not be shown. Some argue that it was otherness in action that allowed the civilised German people to treat Jews so horrendously. In order to gas them, they had firstly to persuade themselves that the Jews — the "others" — were subhuman and that wiping them out was not a crime like murdering members of your own group..
I think Australia would be vastly better off if it rid itself of schools that inculcate in its students the idea that they are in some special way different from, even better than, those "others" not members of their tribe. I believe that the long term benefits would easily repay the short term inconvenience.
While faith-based schools continue to be allowed, it should at least be compulsory for them all to teach a proper study of religion course: one that informs students about the beliefs and rituals of all the world's major religions; one that honestly and frankly informs them of the great evil religions have been responsible for as well as the great good; one that teaches children to seek and appraise evidence to support or rebut religious beliefs. Above all, religious schools should never again be allowed to abuse the minds of innocent children by guaranteeing to them that God exists and loves them but will subject them to indescribably cruel and never ending torture if they don't love him back because not a single person who ever lived, or ever will, could honestly give this guarantee. Those who give it might delude themselves that they are doing God's bidding. In fact they are just lying.

Methinks Moira does protest too much. And with too little basis. She does not like organised religion, I get it. Got it every other paragraph. But that is not the point of the piece. Tying the issue of whether organised religion to the accusations of child abuse is polemic not policy discussion. As a matter of practice many religious institutions have undertaken charitable work for centuries. Whether you dislike religions generally or some in particular on any objective measure many do charitable work as defined in law and the generally understood meaning of the word. So why should the charitable work not attract the exemption or is the real argument "because I don't like religion they should not get it." The issue surely is distinguishing the charitable work from the non charitable part of what religious bodies do. That is where it gets hard, both legally and politically. But what the argument here is essentially not about the efficacy or equity of charitable institutions it is more about having a go at religions. Fair enough but don't run the argument under a clumsy purported argument about a legal status. Less protesting and more logic.

Where religion provides a charitable function it is entitled to the same exemption as any other charity. However, the advancement of religion itself should not be equated with serving a charitable function and should not merit a tax exemption.