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So the Government are going to bring forward legislation that will require faith schools [1] to take 25% of their pupils from other faiths and none. This is a good first step as long as those who are not from the faith ethos of the school are not forced to take part in religious and semi-religious activities. There should not be prayers etc. at the end of assemblies without giving everyone (including those whose parents are of the faith of the school) an opportunity to leave the room. It looks like only new schools will have to follow the rules if they are implemented. Why can it not apply to existing faith schools? Surely if the concept is valid for new schools then existing schools could implement it as they take in new pupils each year. Then over a few years the existing schools would be operating under the same rules as new ones.

And why 25%? Why not 50%? If the school is taking state funding then it should be open to all pupils irrespective of their faith. I’d like to see schools that took pupils based on there academic ability and/or proximity to the school. However in the real world this is unlikely to happen for some time given the penetration of faith schools. But 50% of other or no faith seems like a good compromise to me.

[1] Aren’t faith schools a daft concept in the first place. They should be schools, not places where parents belief systems can be forced on children. Teach tham about all religions and none and then let them make up their own minds.

Why is there so much religious nonsense about at the minute? The first two items on the news on BBC Radio 2 at 13:00 today were a story about an employee of British Airways who is suing them for religious discrimination because they told her to cover up a piece of jewellery depicting a cross. The second story was about the Muslim teacher who was suspended for refusing to remove her veil. The BA worker is complaining because she says other religions don’t have to cover religious clothing such as a Sikhs head covering. When you look into the story it turns out that BA don’t ban religious jewellery but just request that it is worn under the BA uniform. The worker in this case however wants to flaunt her religion and is using the fact that other items, like headscarves, are allowed to claim discrimination against Christians. The fact that turbans and headscarves are impossible to hide under the BA uniform seems to have escaped her. Sigh.

As for the teacher who has been suspended. She is claiming that she just wants to wear the veil in the presence of men. I’ve just seen her interviewed on BBC News 24. She was asked if there had been any men on the panel that interviewed her and if she had worn the veil during the interview. She was very reluctant to answer the question and it had to be put several times. It turns out there was a man on the panel and that she was not wearing the veil during the interview. Why was it okay not to wear the veil then? I sense someone trying to make a political statement rather than a religious one.

Despite what spin the Church of England might have put on the churchgoing figures that where released last week the fact is that people are abandoning churches, and religion according to other surveys, at a high rate. Happy days. Some stats:

6.3% of the population go to church on an average Sunday, compared to 7.5% in 1998
29% of churchgoers are 65 or over, compared with 16% of the population
9% of churches have no-one under 11 in their congregations

Roll on the day when when religion is studied as ancient history.