If you haven’t read the sensation caused by Charlie Fine, who told Fred Nile to kiss his ass in the SMH you should:
http://www.mamamia.com.au/social/charlie-fine-why-we-need-to-allow-children-to-think-for-themselves/
This latest stoush however is a continuation of the issue that “no one is talking about” … namely, why do we seem to feel like the church has these rights in the first place?
Apparently what is happening in NSW is, like in VIC, parents are unhappy with the policy that churches are imposing on schools, namely, give us a go at the kids with our confessional teaching but make it difficult and punitive to opt out.
Layer on top of this, the notion that if we are going to let the Christian Churches “have a slot” we have to extend that idea to the various other faiths that now call Australia home, and to avoid admitting that this state of affairs is absurd, and to avoid speaking plainly and truthfully about the proper place of religion in a public school, everyone in NSW it seems decided that barracking for “ethics” would be a great solution.
Now that Christian Nationalists have targeted this so called “solution”, it is down to an 11 year old fan of gay mardi gras, to bring this caricature of Elmer Gantry to heel.
Maybe Charlie can be convinced to write about how it is insane to suppose that we can create a volunteer run corps of ethics instructors to create “choice” in our 1,000 or so primary schools … after all what are “teachers” for, when apparently we can run our education system with “volunteers” and provide “choice” for everyone?
Charlie, please, keep going, you seem to be the great hope for “reasoning” and un-afraid to speak truth to power. How ’bout another essay on why “scripture” has passed its sell by date?
