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Gove on atheist free schools - missing the point?
Speaking before the education select committee yesterday, education secretary Michael Gove suggested he would welcome the opening of atheist free schools under the new Academies Act. Referring to Richard Dawkins' remarks during a recent web chat with users of the website Mumsnet, in which he responded to a suggestion that atheists use the new legislation to set up schools by saying he liked the idea of a free-thinking school, Gove told the committee:
"One of the most striking things that I read recently was a thought from Richard Dawkins that he might want to take advantage of our education legislation to open a new school, which was set up on an explicitly atheist basis.
"It wouldn't be my choice of school, but the whole point about our education reforms is that they are, in the broad sense of the word, small 'l', liberal, that they exist to provide that greater degree of choice." He later told reporters "If Professor Dawkins wants to set up a school we would be very interested to look at an application."
As many commentators have pointed out, the Academies Act is likely to lead to an increase in the number of schools controlled by religious organisations. With this in mind, it would appear Gove was hoping to placate critics of the legislation by effectively saying, don't worry, religious groups are going to set up schools, but you can too if you like.
But isn't Gove missing the point? When I blogged about this following Dawkins' Mumsnet chat, I tried to get a sense of what readers thought of setting up free schools in the name of non-religious philosophies, such as "atheist", "humanist" or "freethinking" (you can see reader comments here, and the results of our poll here). Opinions varied, of course, but the overall impression was one of opposition. Humanists and secularists don't, on the whole, seem to favour taking advantage of the coalition's reforms in this way. While some think it might be time to take an "if you can't beat them..." approach, many feel doing so would represent an inadvertent endorsement of a system humanists and secularists have spent years opposing.
I think this is where I stand too – we already have a situation where, in many cases, the children of Catholic parents go to Catholic schools, the children of Church of England parents to to Church of England Schools, the children of Muslim parents go to Muslim schools, and so on. The answer, from an atheist perspective, is not to add to the problem by sending the children of atheist parents to atheist schools. We currently have an education system that encourages segregation along religious lines, and we should be campaigning for this to be replaced by a system that encourages integration. This view is summed up well by the BHA's chief executive Andrew Copson, in his response to Gove's comments yesterday:
"The BHA campaigns for totally inclusive schools for children of all faiths and none. In our view, many inclusive community schools are already more or less humanist in their ethos and values. If compulsory collective worship was ended and RE became universally objective, fair and balanced, community schools would indeed be humanist in all but name, open and accommodating to all." I'm looking to cover this in the next issue of the magazine, so reader comments would be greatly appreciated. Where do you stand on this issue? Do you welcome Gove's comments? Should atheists now look to use the provisions of the Academies Act? Or should we oppose the idea of any school set up in the name of a particular religion or philosophy?
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Priest in the dog house for delivering Pooch-arist
 | | Breed pictured - not actual dog |
I've been to a few church services in my time (I know - I'll tender my resignation in the morning), and it's often (well, occasionally) occurred to me that delivering the Holy Communion, or Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Table, or Blessed Sacrament, or The Lord's Supper – you know, the bit where they have some cardboard-like bread and wine, which to Catholics actually the body and blood of Christ, but to Anglicans only represents said body and blood – must be a bit of a minefield.
Think about it – how is the poor priest supposed to know who's eligible to take it? As I understand it, you have to be confirmed, but it's hardly like they make you prove that you have been when you reach the altar. Yet a cursory Google search tells me that this isn't always necessary. The Catholic Church, apparently, is much stricter, but even then I'd be interested to know how they would go about halting any would-be sacramental imposters. Anglican churches, in my experience the Church of England, have always struck me as representing something of a free-for-all – even I've knocked back a couple of Eucharists, and I've been a godless heathen for pretty much as long as I can remember.
But there must be some rules, even in the Anglican church. What is the priest supposed to do if a new face comes forward to take communion? What if a known atheist steps up? Or a teenager suspected of being too young? And what if a dog tries to take the Eucharist? It's a serious question, because it's what Reverend Marguerite Rea of St Peter's Anglican Church, Toronto had to deal with recently, when one of her parishioners, Donald Keith, arrived at the altar with his beloved German Shepherd, Trapper. Her answer was to give Trapper his bread and wine, in what she says was a "simple church act of reaching out" to Keith during his first service at the church.
Unfortunately for the Reverend, however, others didn't agree. One parishioner complained to the archdiocese, and Rea has since had to apologise, with her area bishop, Patrick Yu, saying "I can see why people would be offended. I have never heard of it happening before. I think the reverend was overcome by what I consider a misguided gesture of welcoming."
As I said – a minefield.
(PS - I love how even the BBC report struggles to take this one seriously. "Canine controversy", "Bone of contention" – great stuff)
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Councillor John Dixon on the "Stupid Scientology" saga
I've been away for a few days, so I missed this – the Humanist & Secular Liberal Democrats' website has an exclusive piece from John Dixon, the Cardiff councillor facing disciplinary action for calling Scientology "stupid" on Twitter, in which he shares his thoughts on the case and the subsequent publicity it has attracted. Have a read over at the HSLD site.
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Maldivan journalist faces police charges for "atheism"
 A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the tragic case of Ismail Mohamed Didi, a 25-year-old Maldivan who apparently committed suicide following the negative and abusive reaction he received to his admission that he was an atheist and not a Muslim believer.
By way of an update, I wanted to draw your attention to another story emerging from the Maldives, this time involving a 37-year-old journalist, Ismail Khilath Rasheed, who was arrested for allegedly attempting suicide, and subsequently charged with, in his own words, “attempted suicide by overdozing [sic] on less than a gram of hash oil, atheism and homosexuality.”
It appears that Rasheed has a history of criticising the Maldivan state religion in his writing – it is a legal requirement for citizens of the Maldives to be Muslims – and he has since written to Amnesty International to request help in seeking temporary asylum.
As with the case of Ismail Mohamed Didi, Rasheed's predicament serves as a reminder of difficulties faced by so-called "apostates" in countries where the state dictates the religion of its citizens. It would seem that the Maldives has a particularly poor record in this respect, so it's to be hoped such cases continue to attract international attention.
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Councillor in trouble for calling Scientology "stupid" appears on Newsnight
Following on from yesterday's story about the Cardiff councillor facing disciplinary action for referring to Scientology as "stupid" on Twitter, here's the man himself, John Dixon, appearing on Newsnight last night (video via Index on Censorship). Good to see this worrying case getting some wider publicity beyond all the web action it has generated.
(As a little side note, look at how uncomfortable Kirsty Wark seems when she has to deliver the news that something "became a trending topic on Twitter today". You can't really blame her – I use Twitter every day, but I still cringe myself when I see/hear old media using web jargon like this, as though they expect their wider audience to have a clue what they're talking about. It's why I decided to copy the New York Times when its style editor advised against using the word "Tweet" in the newspaper, and incorporate the same rule into the style guide for our print magazine. I think Twitter's great, but I think we do need to remember that the overall number of users isn't that great compared to the numbers watching Newsnight, for example. All these Twitter-generated news stories that keep appearing in old media must be baffling for some people – I'm not saying don't run them, but they need to be framed in a way that isn't off-putting for those who know nothing of Twitter. Anyway, rant over - it's one for discussion anyway!)
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