Honorary Associate: Philip Pullman
Phillip Pullman is the best-selling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy of fantasy novels, and a number of other books, loved both by children and adults alike. The first volume of the trilogy, Northern Lights, won the Carnegie Medal for children’s fiction in the UK in 1995 and the last volume, The Amber Spyglass, was awarded the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in 2002. His Dark Materials are controversial, especially with fundamentalist Christian groups who believe that Pullman is actively pursuing an anti-Christian agenda. The Archbishop of Canterbury, meanwhile, proposed that His Dark Materials be taught as part of religious education in schools.
“The theocratic cast of mind is always reductive, whether it’s in power or not.”
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Guardian, 21 August 2008
Yorkshire Post, 21 August 2008
Telegraph, 21 August 2008
The fact that this case was won while another case – that of 16- year old Lydia Playfoot and her claim in 2007 to want to wear a “chastity ring” in school – was thrown out of court seems in itself to be discriminatory.
Government transitional safeguards to protect the jobs and promotion prospects of head teachers and teachers already in post in Voluntary Controlled faith schools breach natural justice and are discriminatory, says the National Secular Society.