Intelligent Design (What should be taught in schools?)

by dhw, Friday, August 15, 2008, 11:15 (5943 days ago) @ rightarmover

"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man." - The Jesuits knew what they were doing. There's a fine line, though, between civil liberties on the one hand and discrimination on the other. It's hard to argue against an organization that pays to set up a school privately to further its own cause ... so long as that cause is not hostile to the general community (e.g. an Al-Qaida Primary School). And if like-minded parents want to pay to send their children there, should we really try to stop them? But for a state-funded school to favour one religious body seems totally wrong, and any kind of discrimination because of sex, colour, disability, sexual orientation or indeed religious belief should always be punishable by law. In fact I thought it was. Do we have any lawyers on this site? - There's just been a vehement campaign by a breakaway Anglican movement to discriminate against homosexuals and women (which I thought was illegal). Rightarmover has now drawn our attention to a Christian-backed sponsor who invited a successful headmaster to take over a school, discovered he was gay, and told him he wasn't suitable. The gay head teacher would seem to me to have a watertight case, though if he can't stand the hassle of suing, who can blame him? - As regards the religious background, though, we do have to be careful here, because half the time the bigots simply use the church as an excuse for their own prejudices. The church lays itself open to this because it bases its principles on ancient, man-made texts that are amenable to whatever interpretation people want to put on them. The head teacher himself kept the religious side of things in perspective. The law too is man-made, but it has a far better chance of unambiguous phrasing, and it has the priceless advantage of being able to move with the times. Ditto any humanistic code of ethics (which surely ought to be the basis of any set of laws). - I was amazed to read in Carl's posting that Americans have far better legal protection built into their educational system than we have here in the UK. Since we tend to tag along in the American wake, maybe we'll get there too eventually, but there would have to be a big public kerfuffle to make our politicians take note. I fear rightarmover is going to endure many more bad decisions before he leaves the field.