Dear Josephus,

By giving funds to religious schools the state does discriminate on religious grounds. It favours religion. The state should be neutral. Only public schools should be funded by the state, and it should be left up to parents whether they want to send their children to those schools or pay for an alternative.

I see no reason that taxpayers should finance various world views through subsidies. People may have any world views they like. I see no reason that I should subsidise them through my taxes.

Posted by david f, Saturday, 3 January 2015 10:44:59 AM

" ... By giving funds to religious schools the state does discriminate on religious grounds. It favours religion. The state should be neutral. ... "

Worse still, it favours certain religions above others.

As for children, we all know that children require protection from their own parents at times and I would include in that the right to be free from indoctrination.

Parents should be considered temporary guardians of the unique entity that each child is, not the owners of children as if they were just any old commodity to be infused with any old fanciful belief system. Extreme examples of when this goes badly wrong have often been discussed here and include children being taken overseas to have part of their genitalia removed, or group suicide to join the space people etc

As for the chaplaincy program, it disgusts me that way too many public schools actually demand voluntary contributions to support this and then allow their chaplains to distribute their nonsense on a limited basis.

But then, Australians are a disgusting people in many ways so perhaps we should not be surprised.

*Is Mise* I suggest that you do some simple searches or go and have a read in the Hansard. The fact of the matter ought become plain enough to you soon enough.

If I do not misrecall, josephus, as one of the resident homophobes has claimed in the past the he/she is not a catholic, but I do not recall which if any religious organisation he/she claims affiliation with.

The thing that I have noticed about low life homophobes is that more often than not, the ones who scream loudest about homosexuality are also members of those organisations who feature most prominently at the r.c on child sexual abuse.

Dream On,

"*Is Mise* I suggest that you do some simple searches or go and have a read in the Hansard. The fact of the matter ought become plain enough to you soon enough."

It is common to provide a reference when making a statement and common courtesy to give one when asked.

Dear David,

My personal view is that the tax-payer should not fund schools at all. Period.

However, this is not the present topic and if the tax-payer is to pay for children to study Reading, Writing, English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, History, Music, etc. etc., then it should not matter who provides that service (so long as it does it well), including private schools, religious or otherwise.

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Dear DreamOn,

<<Parents should be considered temporary guardians of the unique entity that each child is, not the owners of children>>

Certainly. Now who but the parents could temporarily guard their children against the tyranny of the state?

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Dear Josephus,

<<We however must be certain that the religious schools are teaching for a morally cohesive and free society>>

1. What do you mean by "morally cohesive"?
2. What gives you a right to demand that a school teaches anything in particular (especially against the wishes of the parents)? How is that different to any other state forced indoctrination?

I understand your legitimate concern that schools do not teach their students to become terrorists or criminals, but anything beyond that minimum is itself criminal.

...Iftikhar wrote: "Bilingual Muslims children have a right, as much as any other faith group, to be taught their culture, languages and faith alongside a mainstream curriculum."

I agree, just not here as we are a chritian country, you either acceptbthat, or leave/don't come. And David F, I would suggest the more that comes out of the recent Sydney siege the more chance we have of changing that. Our forefathers did not loose their lives only to allow extremists to have a free reign in our peace loving nation, nor their kids.

I would suggest that while private schools used to provide a better education, like anything, greed takes hold so they are now often dumping grounds for rich parents who work all hours and so long as they pay the fees, for schooling and after care, along with the hefty donation or two, their kids are often accepted, even if they are il disciplined.

Dear rehctub,

You wrote: "...we are a christian country, you either accept that, or leave/don't come." [edited for spelling]

The above statement is wrong.

We are a country with a Christian majority. However, our Constitution in S. 116 states:

"The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth."

The Christian religion has no more status under Australian law than any other religion or no religion. We are not a Christian country in any legal sense. Australians are free to follow any religion or none. One does not have to accept the majority religion to be an Australian. Australia's greatest soldier, General Monash, was not a Christian, and there is no reason that any Australian should have to accept Christianity or any special status for the religion.

Australia has had atheistic prime ministers and Jewish governor generals. It is possible that a Muslim may also become prime minister or governor general.