Newsline 22 May 2015

Newsline 22 May 2015

Good news! Recent days have seen LibDem leadership contender Tim Farron call for a secular state, and, despite new legislation giving local authorities the 'power to pray', a town council has voted to drop prayers from its council meetings. However, we've also had an MP warning of "religious intimidation" of voters, and a former judge ludicrously compare secularism to religious repression under the Tudors. As MPs took their seats in Parliament this week, we remember the contribution of NSS founder Charles Bradlaugh- who fought for the right of the non-religious to affirm. Join us to help support and fund the work Bradlaugh started in 1866.

News, Blogs & Opinion

LibDem leadership contender calls for secular state

News | Wed, 20th May 2015

Tim Farron, one of two candidates for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats, has called for the Church of England to be disestablished and has also expressed his opposition to faith schools.

"If we were starting from scratch, I would not have church schools, but we are where we are," Mr Farron told PinkNews.

Commenting on the inevitable contradictions that come from having religious groups running schools, Mr Farron said: "if we're accepting that faith schools exist, we're accepting their ability to teach in accordance with that ethos up to a point."

When pressed on the question of compulsory sex and relationship in all state-funded schools – including church schools, Mr Farron said: "I support age-appropriate inclusive sex education, that is informed – but if we're going to have faith schools, they should be able to practise their ethos."

Nonetheless, in principle, Mr Farron opposes faith-based schools. Emphasising his support for age-appropriate sex education, even in faith schools, he said "these are state-funded schools."

When asked what he would say to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, Mr Farron replied: "The fundamental thing… and I certainly said [this] to the last Archbishop of Canterbury – is the Church of England should be disestablished."

Mr Farron, a Christian, added, "I think the Church of England is compromised by being part of the furniture of the state.

"I think it damages Christianity to have an established church, and it certainly it's also illiberal to have a state church anyway."

He went on to say, "although I'm a Christian myself, I do not believe I have any right to impose my faith on anybody else."

National Secular Society campaigns manager Stephen Evans commented: "These are welcome comments. It very encouraging to see politicians articulating secular views that most of the public are already extremely sympathetic towards.

"It is also worth repeating that it is entirely reasonable to be a secularist and a Christian- as Mr Farron demonstrates. Secularism is simply about fairness: secularism protects religious freedom and freedom from religion."

Whitchurch scraps prayers in Council meetings

News | Mon, 18th May 2015

Whitchurch Town Council has voted to abolish the practice of saying prayers at its meetings, just weeks after the previous Government passed legislation enabling councils to include religious observances as part of their official meetings.

A proposal to replace prayers with a 'period of reflection' was rejected by a majority of councillors, meaning no religious observances whatsoever will now take place at council meetings.

Councillor Steven Neilson, who said he felt "intimidated" by prayers, paid tribute to his "Christian friends and colleagues" for their positive reaction to his proposal that prayers be excluded from town hall meetings.

Cllr Neilson said: "Council meetings should be conducted in a manner equally welcoming to all councillors, regardless of their individual religious beliefs or lack of belief. A common theme from our discussions on council is that we must avoid imposing our personal religious beliefs on others".

Stephen Evans, National Secular Society campaigns manager, commended the Council for recognising that prayers in secular settings can create an "unwelcoming environment".

The decision is another blow for Eric Pickles who last week lost his job as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. One of his final acts as Communities Secretary was to issue a statement declaring the Local Government (Religious Observances) Act as a victory for "freedom to worship over intolerant and aggressive secularism" and for "long-standing British liberties over modern-day political correctness".

Mr Evans commented: "Although we were disappointed to see legislation to re-establish council prayers pass into law with so little scrutiny, we fully expect other councils to realise that local authority meetings are not an appropriate setting for religious worship. Religious freedom is important, but a secular approach to these matters is necessary to ensure that an individuals' right to worship is always balanced by others' rights to worship in other ways, or live their lives free from religion if they so choose".

Last week the NSS welcomes Mr Pickles' departure from Cabinet, and criticised his legacy of using his ministerial office to promote a religious agenda.

Meanwhile, a Council in Northern Ireland was recently left bitterly split after an hour-long debate about having prayers at the start of meetings. Sinn Féin Councillor Cara McShane said she believed that politics and religion were 'separate' and told council colleagues "I don't come here to pray."

*Update* an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Sinn Féin Councillor Cara McShane was an SDLP councillor.

75% of Britons have never been influenced by a religious leader

News | Mon, 18th May 2015

Polling by YouGov has found that while a slim plurality of Britons think religious leaders should comment on politics and the economy, just 19% are actually influenced by what religious leaders say.

When asked if they have "ever been influenced by a religious leader", 75% of respondents answered no, while just 19% said they had.

44% of respondents said that religious leaders "should comment on political and economic matters", compared with 39% who said they should not.

NSS president Terry Sanderson commented: "In a free society there is no problem with religious leaders speaking out on issues that concern them, but they should not do so from a place of privilege. It is wrong – for example- that Bishops have seats reserved for them in the House of Lords and are in a position to interfere with the democratic process. This gives them unwelcome and disproportionate influence.

"There have also been a worrying number of recent reports about religious leaders and groups trying to religiously influence voters in an inappropriate way, and even using religious intimidation."

There was a sharp party-divide in responses in the YouGov poll, with 52% of Conservative voters saying religious leaders shouldn't comment on "political and economic" matters. Just 34% of Conservative supporters said religious leaders should comment on those types of issues.

Some Conservatives were very critical of the Church of England's interventions in the run-up to the General Election. Conservative MP Nadine Dorries argued in February that a letter sent by Anglican bishops before the General Election asking for a "fresh moral vision" for the UK was very "left-wing leaning." She added that the Church was "very keen to dive in on political issues when actually no-one is asking it to."

In contrast, 59% of Labour voters agreed that religious leaders should comment, compared with 29% who said they shouldn't. 63% of Liberal Democrats answered yes, while 29% said no.

As with Conservative supporters, UKIP voters were opposed to religious leaders commenting on politics. By 54% to 31%, UKIP supporters were against religious figures remarking on political and economic matters.

After being prompted with the names of several religious leaders, including the current Archbishop and his predecessor, 45% said none of the figures named had made the "best contribution to moral and religious life."

Young people were less likely to "take any notice" of what religious figures say than older voters. Only 21% of 18-24 year-olds reported to take notice of what religious figures said, compared with 34% of over 60s.

Polling earlier this year found that 62% of Britons says they are not religious.

‘Spiritual influence’, democracy and free expression

Opinion | Tue, 19th May 2015

Religious voting blocs and sectarian and divisive politics harm society and can undermine democracy. But are laws that potentially restrict free expression the answer? Alastair Lichten considers the charge of 'undue spiritual influence'.

Many student unions prohibit negative campaigning in student elections. The purpose of these bans and the values behind them may be ones that we find admirable; student elections are about more than just the result, they are about engaging people with politics, democracy and the student movement. Negative campaigning can put students off of all of these and harm campus relations.

Imagine if an aversion to negative campaigning was a universally accepted value in student politics, and if negative campaigners were punished at the ballot box. More people might be engaged, student unions might be more representative and less censorious.

The problem is whether you agree with these values or not, negative campaigning bans are a terrible way of encouraging them. Some groups flagrantly ignore the rules or work around them – these groups in my experience are among the most aggressive in complaining about others' perceived breaches of the ban. Other groups find their free speech restricted as they are prevented from making legitimate criticisms.

There are lots of electoral tactics which do societal harm and that undermine the values of a liberal democracy, but are laws the best way of preventing this harm/protecting those values?

For example, Section 115 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 creates the criminal offence of "undue influence", which is committed by anyone who (among other things) "directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf… inflicts or threatens to inflict, by himself or by any other person, any temporal or spiritual injury, damage, harm or loss upon or against any person in order to induce or compel that person to vote or refrain from voting, or on account of that person having voted or refrained from voting".

There were three articles published last week on the topic of 'undue spiritual influence' which are worth considering.

Writing in the Guardian, Giles Fraser contrasts two situations. The first is the removal from office of former Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman, on charges including undue spiritual influence – for example Rahman was endorsed in a letter to a Bangladeshi newspaper by 101 imams, which may have been influenced by his funding of religious groups in the borough.

In the second case, Fraser considers various Hindu organisations who actively campaigned for the Conservative Party, including the Hindu Forum of Britain, over the Conservatives' opposition to outlawing caste discrimination. In this case no action was taken against them for 'undue spiritual influence', raising the question posed by Fraser: "Is it one rule for the Hindus and another for the Muslims?"

Fraser's article does not mention the National Council of Hindu Temples' campaigning for the Conservative Party on the same issue, campaigning which earned them a rebuke from the Charity Commission for potentially misusing their charitable status.

Religious and secular charities play an important role in civil society and their freedom to campaign should be broadly protected. However, not least because they receive effective state subsidies, most people accept some restrictions on charities (perceived) party political or other campaigning. Such restrictions have to be very carefully monitored so they do not restrict free expression and to ensure they are equally applied.

For example, in addition to the National Council of Hindu Temples, four other non-religious charities were recently criticised by the Charity Commission for potentially misusing their charitable status in appearing to endorse the Conservative Party.

Mr Fraser's bizarre assertion that "free-speech humanists" are not concerned because they "dislike religion more than they support free speech" is an unbecoming diversion in an otherwise coherent article. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, he raises important concerns over the potential 'can of worms' that these cases open and the implications for community cohesion and religious freedom if the law is (or appears to be) enforced in an unequal or draconian manner.

These concerns over religious freedom were echoed in a second article, also from a Christian perspective, on the conservative religious/political Archbishop Cranmer blog.

The third article was the story we covered of the re-elected Labour MP for Slough, Fiona MacTaggart, who raised concerns when Muslim voters were allegedly told that they were not 'true Muslims' unless they voted against her. Her defeated Conservative Party rival, Gurcharan Singh, supported calls for 'blasphemy' to be criminalised.

So far in this case there is no suggestion from Ms MacTaggart that the undue spiritual influence law should be the tool to deal with what she described as "religious intimidation" and "an attempt to divide Slough and its community".

Yesterday we reported on a poll which showed that a plurality of Britons believe religious leaders should intervene in politics but that 75% of Britons paid their interventions no heed. Despite this, some religious leaders have a paranoid fantasy that secularists are trying to curtail their freedom of speech, when in fact secularists simply seek to prevent them having a privileged or undue influence and to guard against the very negative consequences of sectarian politics.

There may be a secular case for laws that restrict certain aspects of religious influence or other sectarian politics in elections, but these would need to be cautious and incorporate strong freedom of expression and freedom of religion protections.

This should be a secular cause that people of all religions and none can support. If a religious leader speaks out about political issues then they should be free to do so, though they should be given no special or privileged platform as Anglican bishops are today. If a politician divides communities with sectarian politics they should be punished at the ballot box, not in the courtroom. When political parties treat religious communities as (potential) bloc votes, those communities should be the first to stand up and say they will not be ignored and they will not be disenfranchised in the bartering between 'community leaders' and candidates.

A legal opinion commissioned by Mr Fraser into the Rahman judgment argues that there should be "no offence in merely expressing a view about the merits of a candidate at an election; nor in urging congregants or others to vote for or against a particular candidate; nor in asserting a moral or religious duty to vote for or against a particular candidate."

It is unclear* whether absent a legal restriction Mr Fraser, who has claimed to "deeply distrust the way politicians use religion as a part of public political campaigning", would consider such an intervention from the pulpit to be a good thing.

Secularists may find religious involvement in politics problematic, but there are great difficulties in framing and enforcing a law to prevent abuse or "undue" influence without discrepancy. In the long-term, the only approach that will work is from a civil society that rejects sectarianism and which simply disregards those who try to use the spiritual to secure temporal, political power: in other words, a secular culture, rather than over reliance on law.

*Giles Fraser has since replied to say that "absent legal restriction, and exceptional circumstances aside, I don't think the pulpit is the place for party politics."

MP warns of “religious intimidation” of Muslim voters

News | Sat, 16th May 2015

The Labour MP for Slough has hit out against voter intimidation, after some Muslim voters were told that they were not 'true Muslims' unless they voted against her.

The row centres over a local campaign- with apparent support across religious groups- for a blasphemy law. During the General Election campaign newly re-elected MP Fiona Mactaggart apparently resisted calls for the draconian measure, and when the result was announced she issued a stark warning about "spiritual coercion in one community"- in an apparent reference to Muslims in Slough.

Ms Mactaggart said voters had been intimidated and that she wouldn't 'build bridges' with those behind the smears. "I don't see how you can build a bridge with someone who says 'you aren't a proper Muslim if you vote for Fiona'," she said.

"There has been an element of spiritual coercion in one community which I profoundly regret. I think it was an attempt to divide Slough and its community which is dangerous. It is religious intimidation.

"Slough has always been at its best when it is united and they wanted to divide us. It is really sad and it is a dangerous thing to do."

Her defeated Conservative Party rival, Gurcharan Singh, said: "The truth is that Fiona refused to listen to the concerns of Slough's Muslim community and the Pakistan Welfare Association about the need for action to provide a legal channel to respond to those blaspheming against their religion."

Worryingly, Mr Singh said the local campaign for a blasphemy law "resonated with Sikhs and Hindus too."

Stephen Evans of the National Secular Society said: "The recent election campaign saw numerous attempts to exert religious or spiritual influence over voters. There may well be problems with how the law deals with this kind of action by religious groups and leaders, as some argue. Either way, it is an extremely troubling development. We do not want to see sectarian politics emerging in this country.

"As for Mr Singh- it is deeply concerning to hear a parliamentary candidate supporting a campaign for a blasphemy law. Inter-faith support for such a regressive measure is nothing to be proud of."

'Gay cake' ruling: “no exceptions” to equality laws for religious beliefs

News | Tue, 19th May 2015

Belfast County Court has ruled that the Ashers Bakery, run by a Christian family, unlawfully discriminated against a gay customer who ordered a cake featuring a slogan in support of marriage equality.

In delivering her ruling, the judge said: "The defendants are not a religious organisation. They are a business for profit. There are no exceptions available."

The judge added, "as much as I acknowledge their religious beliefs this is a business to provide service to all. The law says they must do that".

Crucially, the judge ruled that the company had discriminated against the customer, Mr Gareth Lee, on the basis of his sexuality. She said, "I believe the defendants did have the knowledge that the plaintiff was gay" and described the bakery's actions as "direct discrimination for which there is no justification." The judge added that she believed Mr Lee would still have been treated less favourably by the company, even if the owners were not aware of his political beliefs.

The judgement also said that "the defendants are entitled to hold and manifest their religious beliefs but in accordance with the law."

In addition to discriminating against Mr Lee on the basis of his sexual orientation, the judge also found that Ashers Bakery discriminated against him on "political or religious" beliefs.

David Allen Green, the lawyer and writer, commented that "religion is legally irrelevant" in the case. He said that it was "misleading" to "emphasise the religions of the defendants" and that the case was about a "clash" between the "liberal principles" of "freedom of contract" and "non-discrimination."

The case came about after a customer ordered a cake from the Ashers Bakery with a slogan (pictured) supporting same-sex marriage, only to be contacted subsequently and told that the order was cancelled because the message was against the company's Christian beliefs.

Partly in response to the case, the Democratic Unionist Party is proposing legislation to allow exemptions for businesses to refuse services to customers because of "strongly held religious convictions". The National Secular Society has spoken out about the proposal, and previously warned that it would legitimise discrimination against minority groups.

See also: Gareth Lee v. Ashers Baking Co Ltd full judgment

Former High Court judge compares secularism to religious repression of the Tudors

News | Fri, 15th May 2015

The National Secular Society has strongly rejected the comments of a former High Court judge, who said atheists and secularists exhibit an attitude to "freedom of speech which is as restrictive of that of Elizabeth I or Burghley."

The former judge, Sir Michael Tugendhat, said secularists seek to limit freedom of religion and speech "to the private sphere" and accused secularists and atheists of denying people's rights to religious freedom and freedom of speech.

NSS campaigns manager Stephen Evans commented: "This is a complete distortion of history, and a deliberate misreading of secularism. To look at the world today and conclude that secularism is the threat to free speech and religious freedom is in complete denial of reality."

Sir Michael went on: "Secularism comes in different forms. It can be neutral, as it usually is in the United States and sometimes is in France, but it can also stand for hostility to belief."

"The terrible story of the Tudor-Stuart religious divisions should be a reminder that freedom which is confined entirely to the privacy of a person's home is a form of oppression."

The former judge said: "When I started my professional career, lawsuits involving religion were absolutely unknown." He added that, "in the last 10 to 15 years they have become increasingly frequent."

He reportedly compared the position of Christians in the UK today to "that of Catholics under the reign of Elizabeth I."

According to the Catholic Herald, Sir Michael, himself a Catholic, said that equality legislation did not protect the beliefs of Christians.

Stephen Evans added: "Despite whatever Sir Michael may think, human rights and equality laws do protect religious believers. Freedoms of conscience apply equally to all. He seems to think human rights should privilege religious beliefs and give Christians the untrammelled right to trample over the rights of others. This strikes at the heart of equality and fairness, the very foundations on which justice should be built upon."

NSS urges Government to resist regressive demands to lift admissions cap on faith schools

News | Wed, 20th May 2015

The NSS has urged the Government to resist regressive demands to allow more discrimination in faith schools after it emerged the Catholic Education Service is lobbying "hard" to remove the cap on faith-based admissions to academies – and is hopeful that the Government will revisit the issue.

Currently, new academies run by the Catholic Church are not permitted to admit any more than half of their pupils on the basis of religion. The Catholic Church in England and Wales is now said to be "hopeful" that the new Conservative-majority Government will allow academies to admit many more children on faith grounds by lifting the cap.

Under the Coalition, the Liberal Democrats had insisted on the 50% limit. The cap on faith-based admissions was the cause of infighting in the previous government, and on one occasion Vince Cable, then Business Secretary, accused the Department for Education under Michael Gove of a 'betrayal' after the DfE "ensured schools could be more than 90% Catholic."

In 2011, the then Education Secretary Michael Gove urged Catholic schools to avoid "unsympathetic meddling" by secularists by taking up the Government's offer of academy status.

The Tablet reports that Greg Pope, head of Parliamentary Relations for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said: "We hope that with a Conservative Government [the cap] will be revisited, and it is something that my colleagues in the CES [Catholic Education Service] have raised with ministers."

A recent report by the Social Integration Commission warned of "social segregation" and called on the DfE to only approve new faith schools "when the petitioners have a clear plan for pupils to meet and mix with children from different faith backgrounds and communities." The report said that "highly diverse areas are not necessarily integrated" and noted that "increased numbers of children [are] being educated in peer groups dominated by a single faith group or community".

National Secular Society spokesperson, Stephen Evans, commented: "Any admissions arrangements to publicly funded schools that discriminate on grounds of religion or belief are clearly unfair and undesirable. Separating children on the basis of their parents' faith is no way of building a cohesive society or preparing young people for life in modern Britain.

"While the cap on faith-based admissions may in some cases ensure that pupils in faith schools are not totally isolated from children of other backgrounds, a new problem is created whereby non-religious parents, or parents who don't share the faith of the local school, find their children assigned by local authorities to a school with a faith ethos that runs counter to their own.

"In the long-term the only real solution is to have a secular and inclusive education system which isn't organised around the religious beliefs of parents. In the meantime, we will be urging the Government to resist regressive demands to allow faith schools to select even more pupils on the basis of their parents' religious beliefs and activities."

Mr Evans added: "If the 50% free school cap is removed, it is highly likely that the 'social segregation' fuelled by faith schools will be made worse."

In 2013 Professor Ted Cantle warned that pupil segregation is "getting worse". He said: "Segregation by faith and social class has been added to that of ethnicity. And the worst culprits seem to be the very institutions that claim to bring us together – religious schools."

Professor Cantle has also argued that religious selection in school admissions will "reinforce prejudices and stereotypes."

Meanwhile, the only free school in Cornwall, St Michael's Catholic secondary school, is to be "swallowed up" by an academy, after the school was found to not be "a viable proposition." The school cost taxpayers £4.5 million, and opened with just 60 pupils in 2012.

A very confused and immoderate Moderator

Opinion | Wed, 20th May 2015

Alistair McBay examines the confused and immoderate arguments of the new Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland.

The Reverend David Robertson of the Free Church of Scotland has now taken up the mantle of the church's Moderator.

First of all, it would be churlish not to offer my congratulations to the Reverend on his appointment.

I have written before about the new Moderator, a man who believes that secular humanism is the biggest threat to Scotland, or at least to his desired vision of an orthodox Christian Scotland dancing to his Calvinist tune. Moderator Robertson has wasted no time before trashing secularism (which he conflates with atheism and humanism) in his opening address to his flock. It will be as much a recurring theme of his time in office as it has been in his ministry to date.

You may ask why the leader of a small Christian sect is of interest, given that his followers were outnumbered in the last Scottish Census by the number of Jedi, and that they are still debating at this week's General Assembly the distribution of assets after their most recent schism in 2000. Also taking place this week is the General Assembly of the much larger Church of Scotland, from which Robertson's church seceded in 1843, and which is arguably more engrained in Scottish culture. Well, Moderator Robertson is of note because of his high profile as one of the UK's 100 most influential Christians, because he repeatedly and wilfully misrepresents secularism and because he can play the Christian 'persecution' card with as much pious gusto as Lord Carey and the Christian Legal Centre.

It will be an interesting tenure of office that will no doubt see Robertson's sense of Christian persecution rise exponentially with every observation about, or critique of, his views. But what exactly are his views? He has made a number of contradictory arguments in the recent past.

Perhaps the greatest confusion in the Moderator's thinking is to do with education and where religion sits within the education system. On his blog he wrote these emphatic statements in January 2015:

"Schools should not be used either for religious, or secular humanist or atheist indoctrination."

and

"The state education system should not be used for the social engineering experiments of the secular humanists."

I am sure readers will concur that these are pretty clear cut and unequivocal.

However, back in March 2008, he wrote to the then First Minister Alex Salmond calling on the Scottish Government to set up Presbyterian state schools based on strict biblical principles. He noted at the time that politicians were in favour of Catholic schools and funding for Muslim schools, using these observations to argue: "On what basis they can then turn round and say Calvinist schools would be wrong, or other chosen schools would be wrong, I'm not sure."

He has now returned to this theme in his inaugural sermon as Free Church Moderator this week, stating:

"We need to educate church children in the Christian worldview and philosophy."

and

"Let the secular humanists have their schools, and let the Christians have theirs, and let parents have the choice."

So suddenly there would seem to be a great deal of equivocation where none existed before.

Is the Moderator in favour of NO indoctrination in schools of ANY kind, religious or otherwise, as in his Statement 1? Or is he now very much in favour of it as in this week's Statement 3, provided of course that the school estate is subjected to the religious apartheid he advocates? You will note here that the Reverend has conveniently segregated the young into "church children" (Statement 3), and presumably mosque children, synagogue children and gurdwara children are among other default identity groupings he would advocate. Note too that in using the expression "a Christian world view and philosophy" he simply means good old-fashioned indoctrination, although he is not alone in the religious world in using new age expressions such as this and the all-encompassing 'spiritual development' which are much less pejorative. Why else would he demand 'Calvinist schools' if their purpose was anything other than to turn out believing Christians of a Calvinist hue? Would these schools be likely to turn out believing Jews or Muslims? It would be safe to imagine their Christian ethos would be designed not to turn out disbelieving secular humanists or indeed adherents of 'Maryism', the term the Free Church uses to disparage Catholicism.

Lets turn to the Moderator's Statement 2 about why "the state education system should not be used for the social engineering experiments of the secular humanists". Does this week's Statement 4 mean that he now approves of such secular humanist experiments if they are conducted within the confines of exclusive secular humanist schools, and as long as he can indulge in his own social engineering experiments in his very own Calvinist schools?

So is he for or against indoctrination, and for or against 'social engineering experiments'? What we can say with absolute certainty is that he is definitely for religious apartheid. At no point in making these contradictory statements over several years has the Moderator attempted to explain how segregating children according to their parents' beliefs and teaching them often competing sets of world views rather than a universal set of views will lead to happy adults engaged in mutual respect and tolerance. If it's the sort of respect and tolerance this Moderator shows on a regular basis to those who don't share his beliefs (i.e. the usual suspects of religious phobias – LBGT community, women, atheists and secular humanists) then the world will remain in the troubled state we see it in today, torn apart by conflict along fault lines drawn by religious ideologies which are nurtured in education systems.

Instead Moderator Robertson tries to argue the case for segregated education by invoking an appeal to equality. He argues that if Scotland does not permit Calvinist schools as he demands, it will mean that "freedom, choice and equality don't quite extend that far." This is a criticism he likes to level at the secular love of fairness and equal treatment for all regardless of religious belief, and especially when this erodes his deep sense of entitlement to special privilege. But equality and freedom of choice should not mean intellectually vulnerable children will be subjected to religious apartheid and taught competing sets of values, not least because children have rights too, established in the European Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In the case of the Moderator's Calvinist schools, children would be taught matters of non-evidenced faith as historical fact, as well as made to promulgate arguments for the right to discriminate against gay people, women and those who seek a dignified death. The Moderator has campaigned vigorously against same-sex marriage, a woman's right to choose and assisted suicide, as of course he is free to do in secular Scotland – though I am far from convinced such freedoms would be extended in the Moderator's Calvinist Scotland. He is also free to run a church that has neither female clergy nor female elders, nor is it ever likely to appoint a gay reverend. However, his attempts to deny freedom of choice and equality to large swathes of the community fatally undermines any argument he puts forward to invoke the same equality and freedom of choice for himself. This means of course that I disagree with his appeal to equality and argue instead for universal education free from discrimination in selection and employment and from religious indoctrination. I will therefore be accused of persecuting him on grounds of his faith, somehow denying him the right to bring up his children in his own faith, as though it is impossible for him to achieve this in his home, social circle or place of worship and without the state education system doing it for him.

I have no doubt we will have cause to return to Moderator Robertson and his immoderate and frankly confusing views in the coming months. In the meantime I trust he will enjoy his new found platform and continue to engage with us to make Scotland and the rest of the world a better place. But his advocacy of educational apartheid with its conflicting agendas, cloaked in an appeal to equality and freedom of choice, is not the way to achieve this.

Alistair McBay is a member of the NSS Council. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the NSS.