CALLS for council education committees across Scotland to be stripped of religious representatives have been branded anti-democratic.
The Evangelical Alliance Scotland, which represents two million Christians, said the proposals would result in less community involvement in policy-making.
A Private Member's Bill at the Scottish Parliament proposed by independent MSP John Finnie is seeking to take away voting rights from church representatives who sit on education committees.
Kieran Turner, a spokesman for the alliance, said: "There is nothing to gain from this proposal and an awful lot to lose.
"It is nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing and is part of a wider agenda by small secularist groups to marginalise religion in public life.
"While on the surface this is about a secularist agenda to remove so-called religious privilege, in reality the consequence would be reduced community involvement in education policy."
Mr Finnie submitted his Private Member's Bill proposal last year seeking to abolish the mandatory involvement of religious representatives on local authorities' education committees.
Highlands and Islands MSP Mr Finnie, who quit the SNP last year after a row over Nato membership, said his bill would make local government more accountable and transparent to the electorate.
The move has been greeted with fierce opposition from churches, but has the support from secular groups.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article