From the President of the National Secular Society on Education

This statement was sent to all members prior to his re-election in 2007

November 2007

.....on the vexed issue of religious symbols in schools and places of work, I have argued consistently that there can be no automatic exemption to uniform or workplace rules for religious symbols. I argued that Nadia Eweida. the woman at BA who wanted to wear a cross over her uniform, should not have been permitted to do so if no-one else was allowed similar jewellery. I argued that Shabina Begum, the Luton schoolgirl who wanted to wear a jilbab to school (even though a compromise uniform of shalwar kameez had been agreed with the local Muslim community) should not be permitted to do so. I argued that the girl who wanted to wear a "chastity ring" at school, despite the rules against such jewellery, should not be permitted to do so. I argued that the Sikh girl in Wales who is challenging her school's uniform policy by wanting to wear a "sacred" bangle should not be permitted to do so if the school wanted to enforce its policy.

To me. such cases are at the heart of the fight for a secular society. Each privilege that the religious gain will open the door to others. As far as I am concerned, we cannot concede any of these cases. because if we do we have given tacit acceptance to the idea that religion is different, exceptional and entitled to special treatment. This is the very antithesis of secularism. It is not anti-religion, it is a fight for neutrality. If nobody else is allowed to do it. why should the religious be exempt? The strap-line on our logo says "Challenging Religious Privilege". In arguing these cases. that is precisely what I have been doing.

Many people, including an organisation to which we are affiliated, Liberty, did not agree with this approach. They thought it anti-libertarian. I think they are misguided. They are fighting to uphold religious privilege, not secularism.

On the issue of religion in schools, most - if not all - of us are agreed that "faith schools" are unjust and a danger to community cohesion. We can agree that collective worship that is enforced by law is an abuse of human rights. What is less clear cut is our approach to religious education. The traditional humanist approach to this is that we should widen religious education to include non-religious philosophies. To me, this concedes the principle that religious education, as a separate topic, should have no place in schools. Why should it have? We don't have Labour Education or Conservative Education - why should religion be uniquely promoted?

The QCA's religious education guidelines do make provision for some exploration of non-religious life stances, but in most instances this is disregarded. A recent survey by the BHA shows that humanism is included on the RE curriculum only as an afterthought, if at all.

The Churches have religious education sewn up, and they aren't going to let it go without a struggle. It is too important for the continuation of their institutions. The syllabus is decided by clerics at the local SACREs, and whatever they say about it being "all-inclusive": it isn't. Nowhere near.

Are we going to settle for a few crumbs from the table. while religion has the cake? I have no more desire to promote humanism in schools than I have to promote Catholicism. That's not what schools are for. Secularism means keeping schools free from ideological or religious proselytising.

It's a principled, long term goal, but I think religious education will always be hijacked by religious interests intent on using it as a propaganda platform. It should be abolished and information about religion incorporated into other subjects such as history and geography, where it can be looked at objectively. We should get clerics out of our schools because until we do, there will be no objectivity about religion in education.

Some see this as an unachievable goal. It ain't going to happen, they say, so we have to compromise and take the crumbs. I don't agree. I perceive that there is wide and growing public support for the removal of religion from schools. The teaching unions are gradually coming round to this viewpoint. Public opinion is moving in our direction, and politicians can only buck public opinion for so long before they feel the consequences.

Given this, I think it is time we abandoned the humanist approach. We should not legitimise the presence of religious proselytising in schools by saying it's OK so long as we can have a little share. I am against the presence of non-religious voices on SACREs because. once again, we simply give legitimacy to the idea that because we are present (without voting rights, on sufferance) we have gone along with the religious agenda, and that we're supporting it.

I want to go for the long haul, to stick with our principled objectives. And another principle I want the NSS to embrace is that we will not seek or accept public money. We cannot legitimately criticise the funding of religion if we are accepting money from the taxpayer, too.

Secularism has many definitions, and there is a debate among members about whether the NSS's aims and objectives should be changed so that we cannot be portrayed, as we are by our religious opponents, as "an atheist front". Does it matter that we are an organisation of atheists fighting for secularism? My own feeling is that it does not, and that we shouldn't apologise for that. Others feel differently.

Terry Sanderson