Court to rule on religious schooling

Court to rule on religious schooling

he National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) is to face a High Court challenge.
Parent Ron Williams believes the NSCP breaches Section 116 of the Constitution which states, “the Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth”.
“This case isn’t about getting religion out of schools — it’s about whether the government should be providing funds for it,” Williams told Sydney Star Observer.
“For kids exploring their sexuality, these are the wrong people to be dealing with. In most cases, they’re not trained counsellors. In Queensland these people can even be involved in sex and relationship education, which I find outrageous.
“For a girl who’s fallen pregnant, what quality advice could these people give? A great outcome would be if money was redirected to professional people who know how to deal with gay and lesbian kids and the pregnant girls or whatever else it is.”
Since returning to Queensland in 2003, Williams said it had been difficult to keep his children away from religious instruction in state schools.
He said even before being exposed to chaplains he’d had problems, with schoolmates telling his children they were going to hell.
But when their school applied for a chaplain in 2008, Williams discovered gender-based programs like Hillsong Shine could be included, and chaplains would be involved in events like ANZAC Day. He decided to enrol his children in another state school.
At the new school, his four-year-old was exposed to Bible-themed lessons so he home-schooled her for a year through a distance program.
Williams’ children are back at school, but opting out of activities involving chaplains has meant sacrifices.
“Chaplains go on excursions and on school camps, so if you want your children to have no exposure to the chaplain, you’ve ‘volunteered’ for them not to go to the museum or the bush camp,” he said.
“At schools where chaplains coach sports, the only option is for your child to miss out on those particular sports. It’s not volunteering at all. You don’t volunteer to not do something.”
A 2009 study of NSCP found 40 percent of chaplains had spoken to students on an issue of sexuality over a two-week period.
Greens leader Senator Bob Brown has promised to replace the NSCP with a Schools’ Community Fund of $125 million a year for counsellors and community workers.
“The program would provide grants of up to $60,000 per year over three years for around 2000 schools, and allow flexibility for schools to decide their own needs,” Brown said.
Williams has set up a trust account for donations from people interested in supporting the High Court challenge.

info: Visit www.highcourtchallenge.com for more information or to donate.

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10 responses to “Court to rule on religious schooling”

  1. Hi Dave,
    your last comment is not at all true. The background to the nscp being installed was not christians asking for it and getting it! The nscp was started because the government had recognized the valuable work that school chaplains had been doing (especially through Scripture Union) for over 20 years and decided that it was worth investing into, so that many more schools could benefit from the broader range of student support services being available!
    Regards

  2. Hi Baz,
    sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is nothing in the nscp or religious education that breaches sec 116 of the constitution. Ron and his team are going to have an extremely hard time trying to convince the judge otherwise. The money that they’ve raised to take the government to court would be better spent on establishing the first atheist/non-religion school.

  3. Years ago someone told me that the whole religious/private school system in Australia (not to mention their tax concessions) are in breach of sec 116 of the Constitution but no one has ever had the guts to challenge it. Until now! This could be interesting….

  4. Dave, Kevin Rudd is no longer a Catholic. He was raised in the Catholic faith but he left Catholicism quite some time ago. He converted to Anglicanism.

  5. Indeed theres religious private schools already, sunday schiols, churches where priests may be spoken to by those who need to. They are accessible already.

    Non-religious poeple and people of non-christian religions do not need to be paying for these chaplains to have access to their children at school! Its unfair to atheist families and unfair to non-christian families.

    And its worse that these unqualified people with faith-specific subjective morality are filling the place that trained counsellers should be filling who are trained to deal with issues of people of all faiths and none!

    The chaplaincy program was discriminatory from the outset and is in fact anti-freedom of religion!

    Let the chaplains go back to sunday-schools where only those who want to attend and spend that state money on inclusive non-discriminatory counselling excursions etc for ALL children of ALL religions.

  6. I googled the NSCP.

    165 million dollars in funding.

    I checked out the NSW schools that participate – they are all in it – government and private/religious

    The funding can be for chaplains or ‘pastoral care workers’.

    I would say it is a racket to give part time jobs to mates.

  7. The funny thing is, when we try to have this issue addressed you just know they’re going to cry “persecution! They won’t let us practice our religion!”.
    If somebody stops you from hitting another person over the head with a club, you’re not being bullied or persecuted.

  8. Good on Ron Williams.

    This is our money that the Catholic Happy Clapper Kevin Rudd is using to teach fundamentalist hate of us to children via Christian Chaplains. It is imposing Christianity as the dominant religion in our schools.

    The background to this was the Australian Christian requested it, and they got it.