Serpents in the classrooms

Here one could read all sorts of totally unbelievable stories, that, unbelievably, Queensland’s many SU chaplains and the “Christian mentors” Ed Qld school principals are filling state schools with, clearly take as gospel. Scrolling down to the story dealing with the “very tired pastor”, one read just how these people, charged originally by Prime Minister John Howard with the task of being simply “a friend in the playground” to the state school children his Education Minister Julie Bishop said lived in “a moral vacuum”, and so needed religion in their state schools, really view Australia’s Indigenous population.

The same people who would be giving Indigenous students “spiritual and ethical guidance” in their largely totally unqualified roles of “chaplains”, and whose friends are allowed into Queensland State Schools to work as “Christian mentors”, delivering the message of love and inclusiveness that we hear Christianity is all about, also believe that Indigenous people are “of the occult” and practice mysterious acts against white pastors, for daring to enter tribal lands. The punishment meted out to these Christian pastors? Why, nothing less than placing a serpent, complete with eggs, deep into the pastors chest.

And the story about the “women with the very sore left foot” is an evangelical’s parable of how women need to “reverance” their husbands, even when they refuse to work or take any responsibility in life. Such are the attitudes that Queensland’s Premier and Education Minister feel are worth promoting, via their “Christian mentor” militia, in our once secular state schools.

There are serious issues involved here that need to be addressed by Rudd, by Gillard, by Bligh and by Welford, and not just in Toowoomba.

As a result of the 1910 Queensland referendum, in order to allow our once secular state schools to deliver RI and Bible reading, the word “secular” was expunged from the 1875 Education Act.

As a result, Queensland state schools have not been secular since 1910.

So, there is absolutely no end to the mumbo-jumbo that can be delivered in state schools by groups like SU, by unqualified school “chaplains”, by “Christian mentors” and by Ed Qld’s own, ever-expanding, group of evangelical school teachers, school principals and deputies and senior managers at the regional executive director level both up, and down, the Ed Qld hierarchy.

Queensland needs to get the word “secular” back in the Act, for the sake of both Indigenous children and non-Indigenous children. Those sexist values of Hillsong, are the same style of values that allowed Toowoomba to deny for years, and even still today, that the E.S. “Nigger” Brown sign was racist.

Even with that revolting sign down, Queensland has a long way to go before it can even pretend to be “the smart state”, and where better a place to start than within the education system, by rooting out not the serpents in the chests of so-called Christian pastors, but the serpents in the classrooms, those who believe in and promote hate, fear, and stupidity.

*About The Fourth R:
The group, The Fourth R, is the only group in Queensland currently calling for the return of secular schooling in Queensland. The group was formed in Toowoomba in 2006, following its efforts to expose EQ staff who were ignoring the RI policies in Toowoomba primary schools. An internal EQ enquiry showed The Fourth R concerns to be “spot on”. Education Minister Welford has demanded to know why The Fourth R is running “a crusade” against Ed Qld. Since the NSCP funding The Fourth R has extended its reach to include calling DEEWR to account for their lack of policing of the $165 million of taxpayers funds. Our supporters, from across the state and nation, support secular public schooling, and honesty within government.