Legal Groups try to Close Catholic Schools

Published on 11 May 2011 under category: legal

A legal campaign group are fighting to put an end to separate Catholic Education to try to rule out the counteracting sectarianism in Scotland.

An article in the journal of the Scottish Legal Action Group is urging the Scottish Government to step in and make a division between church and state by "ending religious instruction and denominational schools" paid by the taxpayer.

The Scolag Journal, set up in 1975, believes that the problem starts with segregated education in the country’s 387 Catholic Schools. It informs: “The roots and effect of sectarianism lie beyond the game and we have increasingly resorted to the law to address unfair discrimination in employment, housing, and the provision of services. The Scottish Parliament has expressly legislated to make religious discrimination an aggravation to a criminal offence. But the degree to which such legal measures can counteract sectarianism is questionable and even doubtful when in other regards our law and civic bodies continue to enshrine, protect and systematically promote social division on religious lines.”

It argues that "public funds should not be spent on religious observance", and that having Catholic and Jewish schools but no Muslim ones, for example, is discriminatory.

The Catholic Church condemned the views as “blinded bigotry.” Peter Kearny, from the Catholic Church in Scotland, said: “These comments constitute an ill-informed and unprovoked attack on religious freedom.”
"Bearing in mind that over 95 per cent of Scottish Catholics attend Catholic schools and over 50 per cent of Scots Catholics marry non-Catholics, our schools, self-evidently, do not create life-long social divisions, quite the opposite.”
The government will spend £525,000 tackling sectarianism in 2011-2012.