The Special Religious Instruction in state schools was introduced in a deal when the government stopped funding Catholic schools. It’s state-supported indoctrination.

There’s also the National School Chaplaincy program, another Howard-era monstrosity in which the Federal Government pays hundreds of millions of dollars to large Christian organisations such as Access Ministries and Scripture Union Queensland, in order to embed chaplains within schools. The chaplains are cheap ($20,000 per year each), unqualified and are not permitted to proselytize (but they do anyway). It’s not entirely certain what the chaplains are supposed to do. Support for children with emotional problems should be done by qualified child psychologists, not untrained and unqualified religion promoters.

Since the Howard Coalition government, the Labor Rudd and Gillard governments have extended the program and increased its funding. The NSCP program is seen as an attempt to buy the Christian vote as the overwhelming majority of chaplains are Christian (there’s only one per school, so all minority faiths lose) and also a cheap and nasty way to get mental health counselling into schools, as qualified counsellors cost far more than $20,000 per annum each.

Under pressure from #StopNSCP and other groups, among claims of proselytising and undermining educational standards, the Gillard government (specifically Education Minister Peter Garrett, a born-again Christian) conducted a review into the NSCP program. While the review was still underway, its findings were pre-empted by Peter Garrett’s announcement of an increase in funding by several hundred million dollars. Since the review, the policy has been changed to permit school principals to decide between a chaplain and a qualified counsellor. The budget however remains at $20,000 per annum so it seems unlikely that any counsellor can be obtained for that price.

The “Marriage Act 1961″ regulates marriage and it was modified in the Marriage Amendment Act 2004 to specify that marriage is only permitted between a man and a woman, and that Australia will not recognize any same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions.

Reversing this shameful position is just a matter of time. A majority of Australians are said to support marriage equality, however our politicians and political parties have been slow to change their policies to support it.

As at November 2011, as a result of constant pressure, the state Labor parties of QLD, NSW, TAS, VIC and ACT support same-sex marriage laws. Only our Prime Minister Julia Gillard will not support a change. There will be lobbying for a policy change at the Australian Labor Party conference in December 2011, and the likely outcome is a conscience vote by MPs.

I don’t support a conscience vote; I think they should use their common sense and adopt the enlightened position unilaterally (i.e. make it Party policy) but a conscience vote is a step up from the country’s current position of Howard era legislated bigotry. As Andrew Barr, spokesman for the Australian Rainbow Labor Network said, “Matters of equality should not be the subject of a conscience vote.”

Australia likes to think it’s a secular country but it obviously has no idea what secular actually means. The definition gets weaker every time someone points out another reason it’s not. Like my kids getting christian education in state school. Sure I can opt them out, but it shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Tony Abbott’s (He’s the leader of the Liberal party but there’s nothing liberal about him – he’s as right wing conservative as you get) recent comments about how a woman’s virginity is a precious gift she should save for her husband was another WTF moment. I don’t like that man.
.-= Lyvvie’s last blog .."Whatcha readin’?" =-.