17.3.14 Church Discrimination It Not Illegal, Apparently

If a school is private, then it can, within reason, do what the fuck it likes regarding admissions policy.  That is the flexibility that comes with not being funded by the state, and working with parents to see what works with fees, schooling arrangements and admissions.  Commerce is an essential aspect of any private school's existence and operation.

State-funded schools have NO BUSINESS discriminating against anyone on religious grounds.  Whilst not all faith schools / church schools are guilty of this practice, very many are.  This is intolerable, and there is no remit from me, a tax-payer, to allow religious discrimination when deciding which kids will be accepted into a school.  If any school decided to take only white kids or black kids, there would be a public outcry, quite fucking rightly.  State-funded schools are not offering a business service, which is in effect how private schools operate.  They are charged with educating children with the funding provided by the state, money collected via taxes.  There is NO PLACE for fucking discrimination.

So why is there acceptance that faith schools which are good can decide that some children are deemed more worth than others on the basis that they may have been baptised, or because the family occupies a pew on Sundays?  This should be illegal.

We read of how desperate parents are attending church and getting 'little Johnny' baptised (as well as 'big Johnny', who is playing catch-up because an application form is going to the local school any minute).  Securing a place at the best local school is every parent's ambition.  It is quite possible that a tax-payer with a child lives five minutes walk from an oversubscribed school, yet the child is denied a place - while another child living half an hour's walk from the same school is given a place because of some sort of religious box-ticking exercise.  Religion should play NO art in this process at all.  It is fucking disgusting that there is this extra level of bias that's endorsed by government, and the churches, who are desperate themselves for any extra attendance at their Sunday gigs.

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