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.