Religious bias and discrimination

The Humanist Society of Queensland (HSQ) has for many years been trying to get the Department of Education to allow the society to provide a secular Humanist program for its members’ children during the period for Religious Instruction (RI)in state schools.

The Queensland Education Act allows ministers of religion, or their representatives, to deliver programs of religious instruction to students whose parents have a religious affiliation. Parents who do not want their children to attend these classes may withdraw them from the RI program, and schools must provide these students with “other instruction in a separate location”.

RI, although mandated by educational legislation, is not part of the normal educational curriculum because it is not a teaching responsibility of any school - only religious organisations. RI is outside the normal provision of educational programs in state schools.

Therefore RI program content is not part of regular curriculum development, monitoring and assessment processes, since all RI programs are “owned” by the particular religious organisations which conduct classes in schools.

It should not be confused with objectively researched and professionally delivered programs such as “Study of Christian Values”, “Study of Jewish History” or “Comparative Systems of Belief” for classes of students from diverse backgrounds. Programs such as these, by definition, are part of the normal curriculum and thus outside RI.

HSQ has, for many years, lobbied the Queensland Government to repeal the clauses in the Education Act which permit this current travesty of “public education” to occur, but so far without success. In fact, the Queensland Government will not discuss removing this section.

As a result the Society took the fall back position of applying to the Department for approval to provide a “Study of Humanism” program to the children of our members and to the children of other parents who might choose it in preference to one of the religious offerings.

The reasons HSQ has for offering an educational (not instructional) program in schools are:

• that no secular values and ethics program is provided by schools during this period; and
• most students withdrawn from religious instruction by their parents are not dealt with correctly according to the law which specifies that they must “receive other instruction (sic) in a separate location”.

Despite the attention of the Department being repeatedly drawn to this breach of the Education Act students may simply be left outside the classroom or, at best, sent to the library. Often they are merely placed at the back of classroom where they can hear and see the RI lesson.

In the past, Education Queensland has refused the HSQ’s request for approval to provide a “Study of Humanism”, conducted by Humanist educators on the same terms and conditions for those conducting RI. In one of its recent communications Education Queensland pointed out that only programs of religion were permitted under the Act There is a definitive legal definition on what constitutes religion and a “religious belief requires belief in the supernatural”. Since Humanism is a philosophy of life “without supernaturalism” it was not acceptable under the Act.

During 2004, however, the Queensland Government began a process of community consultation for rewriting the Education Act that “is becoming dated and needs a comprehensive review to ensure that it reflects contemporary society and educational practice and is responsive to issues …” (Education Laws for the Future, Consultation Paper, October 2004)

HSQ’s submission stated that its primary position was to end religious instruction and replace it with normal professional curriculum programs. HSQ maintained that the current system, conducted in schools by visitors from the religious communities, is fundamentally incompatible with the provision of public (secular) education.

However, since the Department stated that those practices would remain, the fall back position of the Society was to support an option presented in the Consultation Paper of extending the current arrangements to include “philosophical programs”, therefore Humanism.

We were delighted to find that philosophical programs were indeed included in the forthcoming draft Education Bill, 2006, when the Minister for Education announced in Parliament, “The provisions include … making sure that our schools are inclusive of their school communities in the provision of instruction in religious or other belief systems”.

While HSQ had no intention of “instructing” students in Humanism (the “Study of Humanism” program being educational, not instructional), future access to schools seemed guaranteed now that the range had been extended to include non-religious systems of belief and philosophies.

At this point the Christian lobby attacked these progressive developments. Spearheading the charge, Federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, threatened to withhold the funds needed to run the Queensland school system if the indicated changes to RI went ahead. Using fear tactics that completely misrepresented the true situation and intention of the changes, she claimed that the new Bill would open schools to witchcraft, cults and paganism.

The Queensland Christian Lobby who visited backbenchers, and emailed and telephoned others employed more fear tactics. They also apparently emailed more than 3,000 churches where Lobby contacts raised the issue at Sunday morning church meetings. The Lobby claims that in 24 hours they can reach about 45,000 Queenslanders (The Courier-Mail, May 23, 2006).

The media coverage immediately showed the success of this campaign. It reported that “the plans to widen religious education had been dumped after the Beattie Government bowed to pressure from conservative Christian groups”. “The backflip followed growing concerns among Labor backbenchers that the Government would face electoral opposition from some Christian churches and right wing community groups” (The Courier-Mail, May 23, 2006).

The fact is that all religions, including Wicca, Paganism and religious cults, under the old Act and under the new Act, have access to schools because they maintain supernatural beliefs - the definitive element of religion. If parents exercised their right to nominate any type of religion there is no legal obstacle to the students receiving that religious instruction if it is available. The only beliefs excluded from the Act are the non-religious, philosophical ones, such as Humanism.

It is hard to believe that leaders of the Lobby did not know that the real goal of the campaign was to keep out Humanists, rather than witches, pagans or cultists, from the schools: for it is certain that Humanism is the system of thought that appeals strongest to intelligent inquiring young minds as well as the minds of their astute parents. For this reason Humanism can be viewed as a serious competitor!

All dictatorial, dogmatic and totalitarian regimes, religious or secular, fear above all systems of belief that promote liberty of thought and a critical mind, freedom of expression, democracy, equality, and human and civil rights. Humanism represents, therefore, everything that challenges their claims to wield authority, power and social control.

Recognising the Humanist potential to challenge and undermine autocratic and authoritarian regimes, defenders of those regimes link it to the most negative ideas and destructive effects they can think of, and attach to it the worst atrocities in history.

For instance, on June 7, 2006, the deputy leader of the State Opposition, Dr Bruce Flegg (Liberal) commented in the Queensland parliament about the ill-fated Education Bill:

Most people in Queensland value the Christian principles of life. There are many who value the principles of other religions such as Islam. They were not happy with the sort of changes that are contained in this Bill. The changes appear to have been prompted in response to some sort of humanist type agenda, but clearly would open the gate to a series of philosophies of life that are not necessarily consistent with the underlying principles that our society is traditionally built on … The community … does not want to see humanist or left wing social engineering entered by stealth into our schools.

A range of literature in current use in Australian educational settings implies that devious and dangerous ideas, sometimes concealed within a hidden agenda, motivate Humanists. A Beginner’s Guide to Ideas, a text book written for religious education purposes by Raeper and Smith (1991), and used recently in some Queensland schools, in its section entitled "Humanism: Is Man the Measure of All Things?" presents Nietzsche as an exemplar of the Humanist tradition. The textbook states:

… in 1889 Nietzsche became insane … The popular image of him is as a person who advocated a passionate pursuit of power. He is often associated with Nazism and Hitlerism and there is little doubt that his ideas were open for exploitation by such movements.

From this depiction, Nietzsche’s philosophy, and by extension any other which includes the rejection of God, can be explained away as the ravings of someone who is mentally unhinged. The message implicit in the text is that Humanists are like Nietzsche and prone to psychological disturbance, cruelty and violence.

A direct quote from Nietzsche emphasises the point further: “Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain?” The message to students is reinforced in this section on Humanism by a photograph of Hitler standing with a group of Nazi youth wearing swastikas on their “Fuhrer School” uniforms.

The linking of Humanism with Hitler; the Nazis; racism; death camp doctors; sadistic medical experiments; coerced sterilisation; forced abortion and/or involuntary euthanasia; is not difficult to find in religiously motivated anti-Humanist literature.

Associating Humanism with the Nazis is more than false and unethical: it is deeply ironic since Hitler was a Christian who promoted religious belief, extolled the value of faith and derided secular education. He is on record as saying:

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith … we need believing people. (Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933)

For many years the general public has viewed publicly funded “government” schools as secular institutions. This, however, is debatable, if not obviously untrue. In Queensland, religion has an entrenched position in schools and is becoming increasingly more powerful and organisationally significant in relation to curriculum decisions and administrative practices.

What is especially important from a secular and Humanist point of view is that nowhere in the Department can the specifically secular or Humanist voice be heard. There are no positions available within Education Queensland, on its committees, nor in its working parties, for the secular and/or Humanist perspective. It is even more serious. Whenever the Humanist Society has offered to provide this perspective, it has been refused on the grounds that Humanism is not a religion!

In other words, despite there being many in the Queensland Education Department who are employed to serve and facilitate the particular interests of religionists, there is not even one person employed to be an advocate for the specific interests of the non-religious section of society. It is likely that something of the same is repeated in the other Australian states and territories.

Humanists should no longer tolerate this. With the imminent introduction of a National Curriculum Framework across the country, Humanists and other secularists must join forces to ensure our State Departments of Education hear the non-religious viewpoint.

If we hesitate to put our position clearly and publicly, fail to assert our democratic and civil right to be recognised as a significant proportion of the Australian community, and fall short in demanding that our point of view gets the same attention given to the religions, then we will have a National Curriculum that continues to ignore Humanists and what Humanism stands for and, instead, operates to further entrench religion and reinforce the position of supernaturalism and anti-Humanism in our society.