Newsline 13 May 2016

Newsline 13 May 2016

We're looking forward to our conference in September, keep an eye on Newsline as we hope to announce new speakers in the coming weeks. Remember to buy your ticket this month if you want to take advantage of our 20% early bird discount!

News, Blogs & Opinion

Faith school pupil not allowed on council-run ‘Christian only’ bus

News | Tue, 10th May 2016

The National Secular Society has urged a local authority to review its school transport policy after a pupil was told he couldn't use the council-run school bus because it is provided only for church-going pupils.

The boy's family told the Shropshire Star that their 12-year-old son, who is already a pupil at Holy Trinity Academy in Telford, had recently had to change address to live permanently with his mother. However, when the family tried to arrange for school transport for him, they were told he cannot use the subsidised bus as it is only for church-going pupils. Holy Trinity is a state funded multi-faith academy.

In a letter to the leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, the National Secular Society's campaigns director, Stephen Evans, urged the Council to amend its policy to ensure that all children are treated equally, irrespective of their faith background.

Mr Evans said:

"Faith schools being allowed to discriminate against pupils on religious grounds does not justify a local authority discriminating against non-Christians in a similar fashion when providing school transport."

"Once children have been accepted into a school it's reasonable to expect that any travel assistance they receive from the local authority will be fair, equitable and non-discriminatory.

"Discrimination in school transport provision may be regarded as a side issue compared to the wider issues of discrimination caused by faith schools, but for the families on the receiving end and for the children who can't sit on the same bus as their friends and neighbours, this unfairness is very real."

According to the boy's father other parents are experiencing similar issues. Without the council provided school bus he says his son's journey would be unsafe, involving crossing a busy road. However, it is up to the local authority to determine if a child's walk to school is unsafe.

Emily Taylor, a spokeswoman for Telford & Wrekin Council told the Shropshire Star that "When a parent prefers to send their child to a school which is not their designated nearest school from the home address, the parent will assume responsibility for the provision of transport and associated costs. However, the Council's policy makes special provision for parents choosing to send their children to a religious school based on their religious beliefs.

Earlier this year Flintshire Council announced it was to review its school transport policy which saw Catholic pupils given free travel but made non-Catholics on the same council-run bus pay. In 2013 one mother in Durham was told one of her two sons (both traveling to the same state school on the same bus) would need to pay as he wasn't baptised.

The Equality Act requires local authorities not to discriminate against a person on the grounds of their religion or belief. However, an exemption means that this doesn't apply to school transport – an arrangement that Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights warned would encourage authorities to treat the religious and the non-religious differently.

See also: NSS urges council rethink after non-church pupil refused travel on a school bus.

Douglas Murray and Turkish MP Safak Pavey to speak at ‘Secularism 2016’ conference

News | Fri, 13th May 2016

The National Secular Society is delighted to announce that Turkish opposition MP Safak Pavey and the writer Douglas Murray will be joining the Society to speak at its anniversary conference to be held in London on 3 September.

The conference, 'Secularism 2016: Living better together', will explore the role of secularism in the modern world and its importance in creating a fairer, more just and harmonious society for all.

Safak Pavey and Douglas Murray will be joining panel discussions about human rights, secularism and Islam, joining a host of other personalities lined up for the conference to mark 150 years of the NSS.

Other speakers include Maajid Nawaz, the co-founder and chair of the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, Tehmina Kazi of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, Paul Rowe of Educate Together, historian Deborah Lavin and keynote speaker Jacques Berlinerblau – author of How to be secular: a call to arms for religious freedom.

Safak Pavey is a leading opposition MP who represents Istanbul Province for the Republican People's Party in the Turkish Parliament. In 2012 Pavey was honoured by the US Department of State with the International Women of Courage Award. In 2014 she was awarded the National Secular Society's "Secularist of the Year" prize for her work promoting human rights and defending secularism in Turkey and she is an honorary associate of the NSS.

During her acceptance speech for the award she said that secularism was the "closest we have ever gotten" to reconciling differences of religion and belief, and that "in the Middle East, we need secularism more than anywhere else."

Stephen Evans, NSS campaigns director, said: "Safak will offer a fascinating perspective on the increasingly alarming events in Turkey, as President Erdogan tries to solidify his grip on and Islamise the Turkish state – in defiance of its long tradition of secularism.

"We are delighted to offer this opportunity for Safak's important voice to be heard – it's an opportunity certainly not to be missed."

Douglas Murray is Associate Director of the Henry Jackson Society and a regular guest on current affairs programmes, including Question Time and The Daily Politics. Since 2012 he has been a contributing editor of The Spectator.

After a German comedian was prosecuted for a satirical poem, Murray introduced a "President Erdogan Offensive Poetry Competition" in the Spectator to defend freedom of speech.

Mr Evans said: "Douglas Murray offers clear thinking on important issues such as free speech, multiculturalism and Islamism.

"We're offering a conference with a diverse range of views and perspectives on secularism and the challenges that confront our movement today, Douglas will offer his unique insight and we're very much looking forward to hearing him and our other panellists' contributions."

The conference take place in central London on Saturday 3 September. Tickets are available now and can be booked online here.

NSS: Efforts to better integrate religious minorities must include a reappraisal of faith schools

News | Tue, 10th May 2016

The National Secular Society has welcomed comments from Trevor Phillips calling for the "active integration" of religious minorities but warned that this cannot be done without tackling faith schools.

The former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission says the UK must plan for the social consequences of 'superdiversity' and change, and warns that a laissez-faire approach to differences in and between communities is "dangerously misguided" and risks allowing the country to "sleepwalk to a catastrophe".

In a new pamphlet published by Civitas, Trevor Phillips says that Britain is too complacent about its ability to manage diversity and urgently needs to adopt a "more muscular" approach to integration.

In a searing critique of the "smugness" about the 'success' of multiculturalism, Phillips warned that the "organic integration" of religious and ethnic minorities would not succeed without societal confidence in shared values and time to allow integration to take hold. "In the 21st century, these qualities are both in short supply," he said.

The National Secular Society said Phillips was raising legitimate concerns but warned that "without tackling faith schools and the segmentation of education along religious and de facto ethnic lines, this problem will be insoluble."

Stephen Evans, NSS campaigns director, said:

"Modern Britain is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world, and home to more non-believers than ever before. Religious conflict and sectarian grievances have the potential to tear our society apart, so we cannot afford be complacent about social cohesion. Our system of state-sponsored faith schools is a significant and growing part of the problem, and runs the obvious risk of worsening social fragmentation".

Phillips said that all schools, including minority faith schools, should be given a "duty to integrate" and "demonstrate that they are making efforts to give their pupils a real experience of living in a diverse society".

Mr Evans said: "It's not at all clear how a system designed to segregate children by religion can be plastered over with a new duty handed down by government.

"Making faith schools more 'inclusive' will simply mean some children are educated in a school with a religious ethos that runs counter to their own and their parents' wishes. Clearly this is problematic from a human rights perspective. Rather than paying lip service to cohesion and diversity, what's really needed is a complete reappraisal of the whole concept of faith schools and a move towards inclusive secular schooling for all.

"Reversing the expansion of faith schools is not a silver bullet, but at the very least government policy should not serve to exacerbate the problems over integration as faith schools do."

"We welcome Trevor Phillips' calls for more active efforts to integrate society, but in this area he seems strangely reluctant to not follow his own argument to its logical conclusion."

Race and Faith: The Deafening Silence, includes critical commentary on his proposals, and the writer Jon Gower Davies said that racial diversity presented no huge obstacle, but that "What is likely to make the lives of my children and grandchildren dangerous and perhaps catastrophic, is religion, indeed one religion, Islam".

Gower said that "Islam is indeed a singular and very serious problem, and should not be considered under the general rubric of multiculturalism".

In response to Gower, Phillips said "faced with a religion unused to having its adherents form a small minority in a society, we all have to work much harder than in the past."

In the book, Phillips has also argued for a liberalisation of free speech in the UK. Regardless of "incompatible attitudes" about gender, sex, religion and the limits of free speech, he wrote, "Parliament should take the opportunity in this administration to renew and formalise a presumption in favour of freedom of expression."

He added that society should "dial down the anxiety about diversity, ignore the angst about Islamophobia. Superdiversity calls out for honest and open speech."

The NSS particularly welcomed Phillips' defence of free speech and his call for "the accretion of limitations and caveats on freedom of expression to be swept aside and replaced by legislation ensuring that only speech and gestures that directly encourage physical harm are subject to legal restriction."

Mr Evans added, "there is troubling ambiguity in Britain's laws about what exactly freedom of speech means in practice. Worryingly a senior police officer shared a post online that said 'freedom of speech does not mean freedom of offending culture, religion or traditions.'

"The law on free speech needs to be liberalised and made much clearer – particularly if senior police officers do not even know what freedom of expression protects.

"Phillips is absolutely right that this is a vital topic for discussion which is alarmingly neglected, and this is an important contribution. The Government must take these entrenched, long-term problems seriously. Sadly faith schools still seem to be a no-go area."

Government announces plans to allow same-sex marriages on MoD sites

News | Wed, 11th May 2016

The Government has announced plans to register Ministry of Defence sites for civil marriages, after religious groups blocked same-sex ceremonies from taking place in military chapels.

The Armed Forces minister Penny Mordaunt has set out plans to resolve the impasse between the Government and religious organisations to allow the use of military sites for same-sex marriages, without compelling religious organisations to perform the ceremonies.

Responding to a question from Labour MP Madeleine Moon, the minister said that the Government is to explore registering Ministry of Defence sites for marriages and civil partnerships.

She described the plan as a "pilot project" to ensure that gay service personnel can get married on military bases and she said that the project will "run for a number of months."

The National Secular Society welcomed news that same-sex weddings will soon take place on British military bases but was critical of the Government for allowing 'Sending Churches' to deny religious same-sex couples the opportunity to marry in military chapels.

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the NSS, commented: "Many people will be astonished that same-sex couples in the armed forces are denied the religious freedom to have a religious marriage in any military chapel, all of which are paid for from public funds.

"The law should be amended to prevent such marriages carried out by liberal religious organisations from being vetoed by other religious denominations sharing the premises.

"Similarly, places of worship should have the legal freedom to conduct such marriages, under the principle of subsidiarity, as many wish to.

"The law should not be used to enforce unpopular denominational religious discipline."

Services which take place in military chapels are conducted by clergy from recognised 'Sending Churches', including the Church of England, the Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland.

Under MoD rules same-sex marriages are currently permitted in chapels, but none of the Sending Churches that use military chapels will allow same-sex marriages to actually take place.

The new scheme will mean that gay personnel can marry on military sites, where there are suitable facilities that can be registered.

Ms Mordaunt was very clear in her answer that "no religious organisation or representative will be forced to conduct or participate in same sex marriages."

Furore over Islamic bus adverts is nothing but disingenuous propaganda

Opinion | Mon, 9th May 2016

Christian groups are being disingenuous and divisive in claiming unfavourable treatment over the decision to allow Allah adverts on buses, argues Stephen Evans.

Christian groups have reacted with faux dismay to news that buses around England will soon be displaying 'praise Allah' adverts during Ramadan, paid for by the Islamic Relief charity.

A number of Christian campaigners have accused the advertising industry of being biased against Christianity and questioned why a Muslim group has been allowed to carry religious messages on buses whilst a Lord's Prayer advert was refused from cinemas.

The answer, as they know full well, is because they are comparing apples with pears.

Digital Cinema Media (DCM), the agency which handles British film advertising for the major cinema chains, turned down the Church of England's payer advert last year because it fell foul of its reasonable and perfectly lawful policy of not accepting "political or religious advertising". A similar advert from Islamic Relief would have met with exactly the same response.

Meanwhile, transport bodies such as Transport for London tend not to have rules against ads about religion – and in the past both humanists and Christians have used buses to evangelise their worldview. In 2008 the 'Atheist Bus Campaign' declared: "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." The Christian Party, the Russian Orthodox Church and Trinitarian Bible Society all countered by plastering their own truth claims about the existence of God across London's buses. All would be equally disallowed under DCM's policy.

One exceptional circumstance where a religious message was banned was when the then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson stepped in to ban averts from a Christian charity promoting so called 'gay cure' therapy.

The Core Issues Trust – the 'ex-gay' charity behind the ad, claimed its 'free speech' was being denied and challenged the decision in court. It lost, and rightly so. The High court ruled that the decision to refuse to display the ads was "justified and proportionate" to protect the rights and dignity of gay people.

In responding to this latest manufactured Christian marginalisation story, Andrea Williams, the director of Christian Concern, told the Daily Mail: "Britain is a Christian country and we Christians need to find our voice. If we are allowing these adverts for Islam, then we need to give the Christians far more freedom to express themselves."

This intentionally fails to recognise that Christians have just as much freedom to express themselves as any other group – arguably far more considering the significant privileges still afforded to Christians in the UK.

Similarly the Christian Institute said it hoped the Islamic campaign would bring about "a new era of greater expressions of the Christian faith, which seems to have become persona non grata".

Christianity may not be particularly thriving in Britain, but it's wholly misleading to complain that Christians are somehow treated unfavourably, or that Christianity is somehow Islam's poor relation when it comes to religious freedom.

Exploiting Islamic Relief's bus adverts to promote a bogus Christian marginalisation narrative (intended to garner sympathy for additional religious privileges such as the right for Christians to refuse services to gay people) is as divisive as it is wrongheaded.

In Britain religious people have the right to express their beliefs publicly, as do those who oppose or question those beliefs. Some commercial organisations, such as cinemas, may reasonably opt not to show religious advertising in order to create welcoming and fully inclusive spaces, but generally speaking religion is free to compete and flourish (or flounder) in the public marketplace of ideas.

Freedom of expression faces significant challenges in the UK but the inability to sometimes secure advertising space simply isn't one of them. Christians aren't being marginalised, they're being treated the same as everybody else – and perhaps that's what really bothers the Christian lobby groups.

Peers criticise “divisive influence” of faith schools

News | Thu, 12th May 2016

A House of Lords debate on school admissions has seen peers criticise segregation and division fed by faith schools and challenging Government plans to prevent civil society organisations from objecting to Admissions Code violations.

Lord Taverne, an honorary associate of the National Secular Society (NSS), said that "Religious discrimination in schools admissions is one of the reasons why faith schools are often a divisive influence in society."

He compared the policy of successive governments with the experience of the division of schools in Northern Ireland.

The debate came about after the Government was asked how the Schools Admissions Code would be "monitored and enforced" after the Department for Education proposed banning civil society organisations like the National Secular Society from raising complaints over Admissions Code violations.

"Of course, it is natural that family and home backgrounds will influence children's views and beliefs, but schools should not put children into categories of belief. They should be places that make children think for themselves; we do not treat children as Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or UKIP children, so why should we let schools treat them as Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Jewish children? Allowing breaches of the admissions code enables and encourages them to do so."

Lord Taverne said that many faith school admission policies seemed to be "designed to confuse and mislead, and the range of ways in which they have been discriminating are clearly designed to secure a greater homogeneity of religion in these schools."

The peer made strong criticisms of the Government's response to widespread violations of the Admissions Code found in a study by the Fair Admissions Campaign and the British Humanist Association.

"Only selected individuals, who will be in a much less good position to deal with the complexities of the code, are allowed to make those representations [about violation of the code]," he said.

Citing the opposition of the public, MPs and peers, he urged the Government to reverse course on its clampdown on complaints about unfair admissions practices and listen to the "wise words" of Professor Ted Cantle, who warned in 2001 that "The system by which religious schools are able to set their own admissions criteria is clearly not fit for purpose."

Other peers echoed his concerns, including Lord Desai and Baroness Massey, who are also honorary associates of the NSS. Lord Desai said that schools must "comply with the admissions code" and that schools be allowed "to do illegal things just because there is excess demand for places."

Discrimination should not be allowed to "fester," he added.

The House of Lords debate took place on the same day that the United Nations called on Ireland to stop vast religious discrimination in the Irish education system. The Irish government has said that it will establish 400 schools by 2030 that are either non-denominational or multi-denominational.

NSS Speaks Out

We have spoken on LBC and to BBC local radio stations about the Islamic charity adverts set to appear on the side of buses. Our president Terry Sanderson spoke to the BBC about a study claiming that a wealthier population could mean the end of religion.

NSS executive director Keith Porteous Wood was quoted by the Guardian, Christian Today and Pink News on the welcome news that the Government will begin registering MoD sites to allow same-sex marriage to take place on military bases.

The NSS was quoted by the Shropshire Star about a pupil who was not allowed to board a school bus because he didn't go to church.