Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Legal group seeks to close Catholic schools

A LEADING legal campaign group has called for the end of separate Catholic education as the only way of "confronting and counteracting sectarianism" in Scotland.

An editorial in the journal of the Scottish Legal Action Group urges the Scottish Government to create a clear division between church and state by "ending religious instruction and denominational schools" paid by the taxpayer.

The suggestion follows growing concern about Old Firm-related sectarianism, which has included parcel bombs sent to Celtic manager Neil Lennon, his QC Paul McBride, and former MSP Trish Godman. 

Following clashes in a cup tie between Rangers and Celtic in March, an emergency summit was held and a plan devised to crackdown on alcohol and religion-fuelled violence.

However, the Scolag journal, set up in 1975, believes the problem starts with segregated education in the country's 387 Catholic schools. 

It warns: "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 adds: "That is done most widely and effectively in our education system where the maintenance of religious instruction and observance, along with the public funding of denominational schools create and perpetuate religious discrimination."

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 Kearney, for 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."

However, Andrew Wilson, editor of the journal, said: "Separate education is fundamental to continuing discrimination in Scotland and getting rid of Catholic schools is fundamental to tackling it.

"In Scotland, when you go into a social gathering one of the first questions people ask is what school you went to, which is code for what religion are you, because they want to know if you're one of 'us'. It's that pernicious."

The government will spend £525,000 tackling sectarianism in 2011-12.

Since the passage of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 made religious discrimination an aggravator to a criminal offence - entailing a stronger sentence - prosecutions have risen from 272 in 2003-04 to 669 in 2008-09.