Further to CJ's comments, I would go on to say that I am personally completely opposed to religious schools of any denomination on the grounds that it is repugnant to indoctrinate children period. Schools here should teach comparative religion only, and when the child comes of age, then and only then should they be legally able to choose a religion.

I would say comes of age is not when they are 18, but rather when they are independent.

..

Indeed, children can be extremely cruel, as are guvments who have long known this and done nothing to improve the security situation in the playground/during recess.

..

NEWSFLASH: I bring good news from Indo dear computer poppets. The Indo girl "married" to a member of the so called royal family of malaysia has escaped, from the alleged depravities of a cruel, physically and psychologically abusive male and his family, who did amongst other things repeatedly rape her, forbid her from going out alone and contacting her family.

Whilst in singapore she phoned the indo consulate, who didn't want to know, even though it has been big news in the media here for months.

So she phoned

*Barry Obama & Auntie Sam et al*

at the N.American Embassy. Reports have been low key and thin on detail but she is now free and back in Indo with family and friends.

" ... WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAA ... "

MY view, if the malaysians won't prosecute, then sanctions should be considered. If nothing else, n.a. tech plants should go elsewhere.

There's no place for religion in schools.

When I was a kid, state schools were of single denomination, Catholic or Protestant. This led to all towns having at least two schools. Not much fun when you had to walk home past the other school and the older pupils there would harrass and ask what religion you belonged to.

It wasn't until Uni or College that both religions were educated together.

Integrated schools prevent all this crap. One of the reasons I brought my kids to Australia.

From http://www.thefourthr.info/index.html

Education Queensland's administration of religious instruction is an intelligence-challenging disgrace. Contrary to the 'opt out' myth perpetuated by the moralistic minority, legislation decrees that over 80% of the entire Queensland State school student population must not be placed in religious instruction sessions without written parental authorisation. They are required to 'opt-in' because a faith/religion (or lack of) has not been provided in the optional space on their school enrolment forms. A mere 15% of Queensland State students are eligible for religious instruction without written parental permission.

Education Queensland religious policy would appear to be remote-controlled by REAC (EQ's Religious Education Advisory Committee) Fiona Simpson, ACL, fundamentalist Christian zealots and extremists within every stratum of EQ as well as fundamentalist Christian usurped P&C committees across the state. Education Queensland's two online religious instruction/chaplaincy 'guidelines' webpages have systematically been reduced to ambiguous, confusing blogs.

2007 added the illegal installation ('chaplaincy' or 'chaplain' doesn't appear in Qld Education Legislation) of Federally/State funded Scripture Union fundamental evangelists into the vast majority of Queensland state high and primary schools. Now, from the chaplaincy Trojan horse of the Assemblies of God/Hillsong affiliated Queensland Scripture Union are emerging hundreds of in-tongues-talking Pentecostal 'volunteers' running multiple controversial Hillsong programmes including SHINE and STRENGTH—with the approval and enthusiastic TV news story endorsement of Education Queensland. With the assistance of EQ, male and female students are recruited by Scripture Union chaplains to attend Pentecostal/Hillsong intensive Jesus boot camps, thus completing the evangelism cycle: gain trust; groom; convert.

We doubt there would be, or could be, anything resembling this sinister absurdity allowed to occur with government funding, endorsement and encouragement anywhere else within the 'developed' world.

I don’t think that they having been attending state schools in Australia for 60 years. The few Muslims we had here 60 years ago would have attended school as Australians like everybody else. That was before multiculturalism and our current absurd political correctness.

The London School of Economics this bloke identifies with is full of PC lefties, so we should take what he says with a grain of salt. He should realise that, in Australia, non-Muslims do teach in Muslim schools, and Muslim kids go to state schools and Catholic schools, without the problems which occur in the UK.

Muslims kids should be learning about their own culture at home; not at the expense of the taxpayer – UK or Australian. The trouble with Muslims in the UK, is they don’t know a lot about the host culture.

Everything that could go wrong following the mass importing of Muslims to the UK has gone wrong. The UK should be used as a lesson for Australia and a rule for what NOT to do.

So far we have not had the problems that the UK has – in anything to do with Muslims

I would suggest that any form of bullying that happens here in our schools is not even close to what those children have to deal with day to day in their own country.

Just be happy that we don't (YET) have suicide bombers or car bombs exploding in our streets, public venues and schools.

As foxy says, you can have alomst anything you wish for, just as long as you pay for it.

Now on the other hand, our homeland children often miss out on Christmas celebrations and I understand that santa can no longer ho,ho,ho, thanks to the efforts of some of our invisted guests.

This is Australia. Like it or not and remember, you are free to leave at any time.

Dear Iftikhar,

As I mentioned on another thread - a pioneering study
was done at the University of Tasmania in 1999 that
demonstrated that every immigrant who has made
Australia his permanent home, has three affiliations:
1) his ethnic nationality, for example, Lebanese.
2) his religion, for example, Muslim. and
3) his citizenship, for example, Australian.
It is essential to ensure that none of these
elements clash. If they do, the citizenship - complete
with all of its obligations - must unconditionally have
the upper hand. If the clash cannot be resolved, the
citizenship must be forfeited.

It isn't possible to lose one's ethnic nationality overnight.
It takes a generation or several generations to mutate from
being, say, Lebanese to becoming an Australian. This should
create no problems, if the person's loyalty to Australia
is absolute and overrides everything else.

It can be done, and has been done many times in the past.