Folks,
Have to say my first thought on reading the article was that this type of 'education' can only happen because, whether we like it or not, the majority of people don't have an opinion either way about the place of religion in education. I expect Hughie's second sentence 'I am ambivalent to the issue of religion' is likely typical within most parts of Australia. This ambivalence allows this type of 'education' because the voice of those 'really opposed' is much smaller than the 'really for' and the 'ambivalent' groups. I don't mean any offence to you Hughie, but your wish for freedom of choice means to me that you are not ambivalent to the issue of religion in schools, particularly when it appears it is part of the curriculum.
Coothdrup

Couldn't agree more. As a former state teacher in qld i witnessed the quiet and effective way that "born agains" conspired with principals to set up a chaplaincy (50% funded by the school). The deal was that RE (note not RI) would be "non denominational" which might mean one thing to normal folks, but means something else to Pentacostals! i recall the chaplain being asked at a staff meeting why non-chrstian faiths weren't discussed in the RE lessons: suddenly the 50% state funding disappeared and we were told that the chaplaincy was owned by christian churches and wasn't about to discyss anything but xtianity.
I can confirm that classes were handed over to volunteers for Re classes: students had to opt out with a signed parental letter. Think about any other school activity that was compulsory unless parents opted out. Zero social responsibility and ethics in the "RE", just full on faith and lots of jesus. Sad but true and defended by the EQ
system. It's a sham and amounts to a conspiracy by a small group of activists who without exception in my school's experience come from the "tin shed" end of the crazy born again spectrum.

"the Queensland public system had not been secular since a 1910 referendum to introduce Bible lessons and RI"
In the 50s and early 60s yes there were religious instruction classes at State primary and secondary schools. They were conducted by ministers or laymen from the respective Churches. If you didn't wish to attend RI you normally ended up gardening or in the library. There were NO Bible lessons or RI given by teachers in the schools.
How odd this religious incursion is happening in a Labor governed Queensland over the past 20 odd years. Aliens?

How can one but be ambivalent on matters of mysticism; without such a faculty what else is there to do but shake one’s head? It’s often amusing scanning the dead certainties among these edifying pages, penned by the mystics out there who are blessed with amazing insights into the nature of God and his creation. I profess only my ignorance (which amounts to a kind of religion), siding with E. M. Forster who didn’t “believe in belief” and saw faith as a kind of “mental starch”. Of course one finds oneself in the minority here in QLD where the average denizen is already well established in one of the mainstream belief systems, or else is ready to credulously partake of something transcendentally trendy.
I have four kids in primary school and I actually want them to get religious education—“comparative” that is, my hope being that exposure to the irrationalities, hypocrisies and barbarisms of god-bothers of all persuasions will act as a kind of immunising agent against their own susceptibilities. But ‘tis true! The public system in QLD (the only non-secular state!), at least in my kids’ experience, offers nothing but twee or fundamentalist claptrap administered by poorly educated (how could it be otherwise?) sots to the cause. I do not exaggerate; my kids have been fed fire and brimstone (as well as fairy tales) from lollypop ladies, and other credulous fools, given sanction by the school! Indeed, even a chaplain at one school, to my certain knowledge, under the guise of “counsel” was warning children about the fiery pit—he was told to tone it down a bit.
I want religion in schools in all its infamy, and occasional glory; but I don’t want brainwashed zealots poisoning yet another generation.
QLD’s anomalous non-secularity is a scandal!!

Hugh Wilson is typical of how secularists operate. They argue that they are being discriminated against by religious influence, but they have no hesitation in using discrimination to restrict freedom of religion and freedom of speech. For instance, in promoting homosexual rights, they go out of their way to discriminate by legislating for such rights to over-ride both freedom of religion and freedom of speech. In promoting abortion, their denial of rights to the unborn is discrimination in the extreme.

Secularists merely object to the proselytisation of their kids. Religion is a cross-cultural phenomenon and children should learn about these institutions that have so affected history and brought us to our precarious present. Indeed it is religion that has always put a muzzle on freedom of speech and stifled rational thought. Just as it is religion that has traditionally discriminated against, nay persecuted, women and homosexuals, or any group that failed to embrace the dictates that the churches themselves routinely abused. It is organised religion that denies mothers “their” rights as paramount over those of the unborn—whose worldly existence is in potentia, and contingent upon the mother’s fitness/capacity to nurture. It is religion that insists on the sanctity of human life, no matter that the proliferation is at the expense of every other species on the planet, and ultimately our own. Secularists are for freedom of speech (though they may often shake their heads at it), but religion should be utterly separated from state, and denied its vile influence on children. Religions should be left to sink or swim in an ideologically “free” marketplace, rather than enjoying government sanction on top of ongoing and discriminative government funding and tax exemptions.
But all the freedoms continue to be enjoyed on the side of organised voodoo!