To celebrate easter, Comment is Free gives you both sides of the faith schools argument today.
So you get Polly Toynbee talking sense:
But how odd that in this heathen nation of empty pews, where churches’ bare, ruined choirs are converted into luxury loft living, a Labour government – yes, a Labour government – is deliberately creating a huge expansion of faith schools. There is all the difference in the world between teaching children about religion and handing them over to be taught by the religious. Just when faith turns hot and dangerous, threatening life and limb again, the government responds by encouraging more of it and more religious segregation. If ever there was a time to set out the unequivocal value of a secular state, it must be now.
And you also get Peter Franklin talking bollocks:
Finally, we come to the c-word: creationism. It seems that some faith schools teach it. When I was at school I was taught about socialism and fascism, and I don’t believe in either. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t object to teaching children that they randomly evolved from a pool of slime; it’s just that I don’t think we’ll ruin their education by telling them that there is an alternative view: which is that they’re the special creations of almighty God.
Pick a side people. Rationalism or nonsense?