Describing RI volunteer run classes and chaplains in schools as “the Australian experiment” which had been “a miserable failure”, Dr. Leslie Cannold has called for a united push to kick religions out of schools.

Dr. Cannold described exploitation of Australia’s acceptance of religious freedom as pushing ”violently intolerant ideologies”, as she accepted the Australian Humanist of the year award last night.

Michael Bachelard reports © The Age today:

AUTHOR and campaigner Leslie Cannold has called on atheists, humanists and religious people who believe in the secular state to unite and kick religious education volunteers and chaplains out of public schools.

The campaign should be modelled on the push to decriminalise abortion in Victoria, she said, which involved a coalition of dozens of different groups working together.

[….]

In Australia the risks from this [violently intolerant ideologies] ”emanate primarily from evangelical Christian fundamentalists, not jihadist Muslims”.

Full article

Dr. Cannold co-hosted The Conversation Hour with ABC’s Jon Faine on April 14th this year. Audio may be

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

[43 min, 20 MB]