Today, in The Australian, the Archbishop of Melbourne defended the circulation of a letter in Catholic schools in Tasmania that outlined the church's opposition to gay marriage, by saying it was all about Freedom of Religion. However, Freedom of Religion means having the right to practice any religion you choose. It does not mean having the right to impose your religion on others. Except the Archbishop thinks it does, at least when it comes to children.
Indoctrinating children in religious faith is the main function of religious schools. But how does this tally with the general principles of education?
In
the 19th century, Britain and many other countries implemented
systems of universal, free, compulsory education. There
were several reasons for this In the case of Britain, which
is the model for Australia, they were:
- The economic development of the nation. Britain feared it was lagging in the science and technology race against other European nations.
- The removal of the class system. It was regarded as a social evil that the children of the wealthy were educated while the lower classes remained illiterate and unskilled. Universal education, it was believed, would allow people of ability to transcend class barriers.
- The eradication of other social evils such as alcoholism and sexual incontinence. It was believed that educated people would lead more moral lives.
- The intellectual and spiritual enhancement of the individual. It was believed that the intellectual abilities of every person should be fully realised and that no one should be uninformed about the world, or denied access to the great works of literature, historical accounts, appreciation of art or understanding of science achievements.
These
aims, which are both social, economic and personal still inform educational
policies in the Western world albeit with slightly different emphases. It
would be fair to say that (b) has more or less been achieved in that it is now
possible for someone from a working class background to become Prime Minister
and (c) is still as a work in progress in that alcohol and drug use are
still mainly (though not at all exclusively) the province of people at the
unskilled and uneducated end of the social scale. (a) and
(b) remain the active justifications for general, free and compulsory
education.
To
them I would add another justification for education: (e) the Right to
Knowledge.
Human
beings are unique amongst the creatures on this planet in that they have
a vast store of shared, accumulated knowledge that is stored outside their
brains in libraries, databases, galleries, images, recordings and other
repositories – a giant collective memory which is accessed and added to constantly
by the entire population. This store of knowledge is collectively
owned and is, in a sense, the inheritance of every child born on the planet.
It
is a challenge to any social theorist or police maker to justify how one person
should have access to the entirety of this vast store of information and
understand, and another not have.
Which
brings us to the issue of religious schools.
The
existence of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East can be largely traced to
religious education. In countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan many children -
boys only of course - undergo an education in the madrassas which consists of rote
learning of the Koran. Not much else is taught.[1] In
the West we deplore this because such an education clearly does not equip the
child for a comprehensive and mature view of reality world; it lessens their
ability understand the wider world and make decisions to their own
advantage. That of course is of no concern to the religious teachers. Self-actualisation
and self-determination is not the primary aim of religious
schools - their aim is the perpetuation of the religion itself. It is a
fundamental principle of many religions that the individual is not as important
as the faith.[2]
Yet
while we disapprove of the madrassas of the Middle East, we defend the right of
Australians to send their children to Jewish Catholic and Islamic religious schools.
While, unlike the madrassas, our religious schools do include a standard academic curriculum that runs
alongside the religious teaching, these schools still
have the inherent problem that they emphasise one religion and it associated cultural observances and attitudes, as being of overriding importance.
It is often asked how schools which exist for the prime purpose of
reinforcing a particular religious belief can be compatible with the wider aims of
education which are to offer a comprehensive view of society and
teach an understanding of the scientific method. The answer is that they are
not.
Recently
there was a scandal involving allegations of sexual abuse against the principal
of a Jewish school. This school catered to an ultra-Orthodox sect called the Adass,
a kind of Jewish version of the Amish, which shields children from almost all
contact with the outside world: no televisions, tablets, sex education or,
indeed, contact with the opposite sex at all. Oddly enough, while news reports
focussed luridly on the allegations of sexual abuse, the wider
abuse of raising children in a highly traditional culture that ill-prepares
them for any engagement with the world outside the sect is not considered to be
a problem. Indeed the Adass community, like the Amish, is regarded as being sort of cute. Indeed, the members of the sect do seem to have a
certain hippie- like contentment, as you might expect people living in a kind
of Fiddler on the Roof theme park
but it’s an upbringing that does little to prepare young people for life, should
they ever leave the community, which of course many do.
The issue here is a fundamental question of human rights. Do parents, or
other adults, have the right to restrict the education and information
available to children in order to perpetuate their own lifestyle in the next generation? The answer to
this can only be “No.” The result of
limiting education, or withholding knowledge or understanding from young people can only be
negative, both for the individual – as it denies them their due inheritance of knowledge – and for the society as a
whole – because it perpetuates and fosters myths, prejudices, fears and
intolerances.
If
that seems prejudicial towards religion, ask this question: what ideas, principles and attitudes are taught in the Islamic, Catholic schools and other religious schools that are of
benefit to the wider society? There are plenty of teachings and beliefs that cause problems for others - opposition to abortion or even contraception, the notion that homosexuality is sinful, that sex in general is sinful, hatred of other
religions, creationism and so on. Now list the teachings that are of benefit to society as a whole? They are conspicuously absent.
The problem is that religions, in privileging their dogma over the wider body of
scientific knowledge and mandating that obedience to the religion as more important
than the intellectual growth of the individual or any benefit of the
wider society, violates the three of the five aims of public education I listed above. It fails to raise the general level of intelligence of society as a whole, or to develop
to their fullest the intellectual abilities of the individual, or to grant open access to
the accumulated store of human knowledge.
This
week there was an issue over a letter circulated in Catholic schools which
outlined the church’s opposition to gay marriage. It justified the opposition
by making ignorant, insulting remarks about gay people. The Tasmanian Greens
have alleged that the church as violated the anti-discrimination laws.
To return to the current Tasmanian issue: in
defending a document which seems to makes ignorant and defamatory comments about gay people, the Archbishop Melbourne quotes the judgement of the
Canadian Supreme Court in the Quebec “Loyola” case. In that case a Catholic
school found itself required by government legislation to teach a general “ethics
and religion” course that gave an overview of all religions which emphasised that
no faith was any more “true” than any other. Naturally, since the entire
purpose of a Catholic school is to teach that their faith IS the one true
faith, they objected. The Supreme Court upheld their objection saying that parents
are "entitled" to transmit their religious beliefs to their children.
It is a disappointing judgement because, by only a slight extrapolation (not a total reduction ad absurdum) it could
justify any form of teaching, no matter how dangerous and discriminatory, if it
were deemed to be “religious.” Thus teaching
children that Jews are evil or Africans are sub-human is permitted if those
claims are held to be part of someone's "faith."
The unqualified assertion of a "right to transmit" must clearly be subject to some sort of limitation. The concepts that are being “transmitted” by parents must be
subject to some sort of reasonability or social benefit test and the potential damages from that "transmission" must be recognised. We do not accept for a moment that people have the right to perform
genital mutilation in the name of their religion or indeed inflict any sort of
physical modification of children so why do we allow what is often the modification of their
minds? Religious ideas are not purely abstract concepts: they have, intentionally, strong emotions consequences. Instilling fears, illusions, empirically unprovable assertions and pejorative attitudes to certain groups in society has the capacity to produce crippling emotional states of anxiety, guilt, insecurity and shame? What is the effect on a gay Catholic teenager reading a pamphlet that says "gay people are not whole people"?
Freedom
of religion is a fundamental right, but the rights of children not to be indoctrinated,
and not to be intellectually and emotionally damaged by religious education,
outweighs it. Children are not simply clones of, nor possessions of, their
parents to be raised as carbon copies or in any way the parent
fancies. On the contrary, parenthood is a set of responsibilities paramount amongst which is to give the child an education that will afford them, as adults,
both the opportunities and the capacity to make their own choices about
everything - including religion
or freedom from it.
[1] . This was evidenced to me in a minor way a couple
of weeks ago when I was in a taxi in Sydney. After listening to a strange
incantation coming from the radio I asked the driver what he was listening to
and he said he was listening to the Koran. This led onto a discussion about
religions during which, at one point he asked “So when was Jesus alive?”
Slightly amused I told him, it was 2015 years ago as current year date
suggests. He was fascinated, having never known that the western calendar was
dated from the putative birth of Jesus.
[2] The
same paradox is inherent in Socialism where the State is more important than
the individual citizen even though the State is a collection of individuals.
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